October Tune

Read this review and more on my blog October Tune!

When I first heard about Panic, a book written by one of my favourite authors Lauren Oliver, I might have freaked out. I seriously loved her Delirium series, and I loved Before I Fall as well, so it was kind of a no-brainer for me when I heard about Panic; I had to read it. And I did. Almost a year after it got released.. Why did I wait so long? No idea. Maybe I was afraid it wouldn't be as I had expected.. But now that I've read it, I want to slap myself for waiting so long. It was so AWESOME!

Panic tells the story of a game that has been going on in the little town called Carp, a very dangerous game. All seniors (and only seniors) can participate and play to win money, a lot of money. In this book we follow Heather and Dodge who both participate in the game, both for their own (very different) reasons.

At first when I heard it was going to be a dual POV I was a tiny bit reluctant; though I really enjoyed it in Requiem, I wasn't really sure if I was going to like it again. But luckily, both characters had their own chapters (it didn't just change POV in the middle of a chapter) and their names would be on top. And the fact that it was in third person made it a bit easier as well. There were some minor parts from other people's POV, but that added something exciting to the story rather than make me reluctant to read more (wow that's probably a first?!). And besides the whole story around it was way too thrilling to be annoyed by POV's.

Because the game, wow it was really nerve-racking. I couldn't stop reading some of the chapters, and I wanted to know what was happening every time so I just read and read and read. The first couple of rounds were kind of innocent - or well not innocent, but not as thrilling as the last rounds. I remember just sitting on the edge of my seat while reading about those last rounds and hoping nothing bad would happen to certain characters. Oh god I could NEVER participate in Panic.

The book wasn't all about the game though, there was enough happening outside of the game so the book was still interesting. There was Heather who had just been dumped by her boyfriend, Natalie and Dodge who had a 'thing' going on, Bishop and Heather, Heather and Lily (her sister) and their horrible mother; I loved reading about their lives as much as I loved reading about Panic. It made the characters so much more complex than just idiotic daredevils who wanted to throw away their lives by participating in a reckless game.

At some points, the story took some unexpected turns that made me freak out, but there were also some minor things that I had guessed already, but still I was kind of surprised that they turned out to be true. But in the end, I just loved Panic a lot, so much even I can't really think of anything I didn't like about this book (apart from the fact that the summary makes it sound a bit like the Hunger Games rather than a completely different sort of game, I don't know - I've seen a lot of people ranting about how the summary was similar to THG's?!). But I just loved Panic. And I will certainly purchase a physical copy asap (yeah I decided to go for an ebook version for some reason, I don't know what had gotten into me).

Actual Rating: 3,5

Read this review and more on my blog October Tune

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley, this has not changed my opinion on the book in any way.

I'd heard a lot of things about Mary Hades already and added it to my to-read list a while back. When I found it on Netgalley I immediately requested it, not at all thinking I would get accepted. But I did, and I added it to my 'to-read in February' list. It was the first book I started reading this month (okay I cheated, I started it on the 31st of January already), and I did enjoy it very much.

First of all, I must tell you - if you want to read this book, you should definitely read the novella - My Daylight Monsters - before this book, otherwise you'll probably be a bit confused at the beginning, like I was. So I quickly got myself a copy of the novella and read it before continuing Mary Hades and I have to say I understood everything a bit better after that. So: Read the novella first!

Mary Hades is about a girl, named Mary Hades (I LOVE that last name), whose best friend is a ghost. She is also seeing Things (that's literally what she calls them) who warn her about horrible things that are about to happen. Which is actually kind of a good thing, if the Things weren't so bloody scary. In this book, she's just come back from the psychiatric ward, where she met Lacey (aka her ghost friend, who wasn't a ghost back then), and her parents thought a little vacation might be nice. But what Mary doesn't know is that that vacation might turn into a nightmare.

I love books like these, books about ghosts and horrible things. That's why I read Miss Peregrine's (the pictures, ohhhh), Anna Dressed in Blood, Say Her Name, and also the initial reason I wanted to watch Supernatural. This book was a bit creepier than ADiB though, which I liked (honestly I didn't think that book and it's sequel, Girl of Nightmare were that scary). Anyway, back to this book: we meet some nice characters in this book; Seth, Neil, Lammar and Igor. I liked these characters, though some things in the book made me feel a bit conflicted about liking several of these characters. But hey, I liked the outcome of this book (okay not 100% but more like 80%)! The writing was done really well and I enjoyed reading it very very much. I thought to myself I wanted to check out more of Dalton's books, and not necessarily from this series.

As for the ghost, it was pretty scary y'all, I mean I could just imagine her as a creature on Supernatural and sometimes I actually got chills down my spine while reading this book. There were some minor things that I didn't really like - like the fact that you don't understand some things if you haven't read the novella, but that was soon solved - but they didn't really bother me that much. Why haven't I given the book five stars then? Well, a book has to completely (okay almost completely) blow me away to do that, and this book didn't really do that. I loved it, but it wasn't a 5-star love, alas. But that cover guys, wow! Fun fact, I read another book (totally unrelated) that had the exact same picture on the cover: To Know Me.

I will be reading the other two books in the series, and I will definitely recommend this book to people who want to read scary books about ghosts!

My opinion on this book in one gif:

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Two years ago, I bought a book called Splintered because I was intrigued by the summary and the promise of a creepy Wonderland - and because of that cover. I read the book and fell in love, though I did also have some things I didn't like about the book (hence it only having three stars though I did love the story). Then Unhinged came out with another gorgeous cover and an even better story. And this year, Ensnared, the final book in the series was released. I had pre-ordered it and picked it up at my local bookstore as soon as they got it, and then I kind of let it lie on my desk for a couple of days because I was afraid of starting it and ending up completely disappointed by what happened in the end.

And I have to say I wasn't super happy with how the book ended, but more on that later. I just want to explain why I gave this book only three (and a half) stars, while I did love the previous one. Because in this book there was a lot more love-triangly things going on. This book was just full-on 'should I choose Jeb or should I choose Morpheus', and though there was enough action to compensate for that at least a bit, the whole triangle thing annoyed me so much in this book. Especially because both boys were so keen on having Alyssa. Seriously I think at some point they even started arguing/fighting about it while she was there, like seriously?!

Like with the previous two books, a lot of things were described in such detail that I found amazing. Though I had a hard time imagining half of those things, I really liked it in this book for some reason (though normally I do not like detailed descriptions of things). I just guess it fit in this story and it would have been a lot weirder to imagine most of the creatures from Wonderland and the Looking Glass world without those descriptions. But I still just can't imagine the clothes that Alyssa wears, I think I just need to see them drawn or in a picture before I can think 'oh so that's what it looks like'.

In this book, I started to dislike Morpheus more and more but I think I am one of the very few because I think at least 90% of the fandom loves him and I... Just... Can't... See... It... He's an ass, he's manipulative, he just wants Alyssa all to himself and he probably just kept Jeb alive because if he didn't Alyssa would probably be effing pissed at him or something. I don't know, I just don't like him. So yeah I was rooting for Jeb throughout this book (and in the previous book as well). I know he's not perfect either (he was a bit annoying in the first book as well, I have to admit that), but I just liked him better than Morpheus.

Like I said there were some nice action scenes in this book, but my favourite has got to be the part in the courtyard of Queen of Hearts' castle. Wow. Some things happened in that scene that made me really really scared, but in the end it all came out okay and I was happy again! But there was one scene that I really really missed in this book, and it actually made me feel a bit betrayed, honestly. The part where Ivory and Alyssa were supposed to put Wonderland back into it's original shape. The whole book led up to Alyssa having to defeat Red and bring back Wonderland and it DOES NOT HAPPEN. Instead Morpheus and Jeb do the thing and ugh I'm just a bit pissed at this. First of all Red was defeated in a bamf way (the courtyard thing), but then Alyssa almost dies and the 'men' do all the work. I really - ugh - I just can't really put it into words without repeating myself.. I am very disappointed by this.

As for the ending, I am both happy and not so happy with it - but it's a kind of spoiler (and I have already used some spoiler tags in this post, so I won't be using another one). If you want to know how the book ends, and (probably most importantly) who Alyssa ends up with, you should definitely read Ensnared.

My opinion on this book in one gif:

Actual rating: 3,5 - Though I am not a fan of historical fiction, I quite enjoyed this book. Will post a proper review asap!

Read this review and more on my blog October Tune!

Before I was even finished with Slated I ordered myself a copy of Fractured because I just needed to know the rest of the story. And of course I needed to know if the second book was as good as the first. And oh my god it was! Fractured starts off almost immediately where the first book ended, with Kyla whose Levo has just become useless after beating up someone. In this story, we follow her as she tries to get her old memories back and meets people from her past. But are those people trustworthy, or are they the enemy?

First thing's first, I want to express the joy I felt while reading this book because it happens in England. I mean - and I've said this in my review of Slated as well - 90% of the Dystopia books that I've read happen in America; or 'the country that was one called America', so this story happening in England just made me really happy (like, America's not the only one who has fucked up big time).

We are introduced to some new characters in this book; one of them that was in the previous book as well, but in this book we find out more about him. First of all there was Cam(eron), who I thought was nice at the beginning - but I started to dislike him a bit further into the book. I kind of guessed he was a Lorder spy long before Kyla found out about it, and yeah it's really such a shame because he was so nice. Then there were Nico and Katran, Nico was introduced in Slated already, but under a different name. I liked him at the beginning but like with Cam, I started to dislike him A LOT after a while. I wasn't really sure what to think about Katran, but I can say he was my favourite of the newly introduced characters.

For a while, I was afraid this book would have the start of a love-triangle (and honestly I am still afraid that might happen in the third book), but for now there wasn't really any sign of it, which just made me jump with joy. Nine out of ten times, when I really like a book, they throw in a love-triangle in the second part of the series which just ruins my mood. But ten points to Teri Terry for not doing that this time (and that, in fact, actually improved my mood a lot). Ok, I have to say there were some tiny things that I found a little predictable, but I'll forgive the author for that. Like I knew that Cam wasn't to be trusted already, and I knew that school that Ben was at was a Lorder training thing.

The writing was still as thrilling as in the previous book, and at some points I just couldn't stop reading (which resulted in me going to bad way too late sometimes), but this series is just really one of my favourites of all time. And I deeply regret not having started it sooner. Teri Terry just managed to pull me right into the story and she also managed to never let me go. I can't wait to get my hands on the last book, Shattered, and read how Kyla's story goes on!

My opinion on this book in one gif:

(me after finishing this book) (gif credit)

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When I first heard about Endgame: The Calling I was curious. A book with an actual scavenger hunt hidden inside? That should be awesome right? Well, no. Because when I started reading the book, I was annoyed right from the start. And even though I told myself I would read at least half of a book before deciding to DNF it, I didn't even make it to 25% with this one.

First of all, the main thing that annoyed me was the fact that there were SO. MANY. POV'S. There were twelve players, and though I didn't get to read all of their POV's, reading from five or six of them was annoying already. The authors did have a favourite one, American sweetheart Sarah. Obviously. A whole book full of diverse characters from all over the world, and they choose the white American girl. (Honestly, I don't care what skincolour the characters have (nor do I care about their sexual orientation). I just want good characters who do awesome things, and if they are black or white or brown doesn't matter to me, as long as they are written well). But in this book, none of the characters were written well.

Then there was the fact that everything was described in detail. Like, a character would be wearing a suit, just a simple suit, but the author would describe in detail what it was made of, what colour it was, what the ring on his left hand looked like and what colour the stones were on that ring. Yes, I do like it when things are described, but sometimes it just took so long for a character to be described that I just gave up and skimmed the whole thing. It was very frustrating in this book. (Just like it was frustrating in Lord of the Rings, but then again LOTR had an interesting story to tell, and I didn't really feel like that with Endgame).

And just the way the book was written was annoying to me too. Such short sentences, so many periods, and there was one character who had weird tics and blinkblink the author blinkblinkshiver the the author shiverblinkshiver would write shivershiver all the sentences blinkblinkblink like this and blinkblinkblink sometimes shivershiver sometimes he would blinkshiverblinkshiver repeat words blinkblinkshiver. I just got SO EFFING FRUSTRATED BECAUSE OF THAT. And ever time the authors started a new sentence that involved the character doing or thinking something, it would be like: "Sarah sat down. Sarah loved sitting down. Sarah thought she could probably sit down for the rest of the day. Sarah this. Sarah that. Sarah why do all sentences start with your name?" You know. It was just annoying, I know it's Sarah who does all those things, seriously what's wrong with using 'she/he' sometimes.

A lot of people are already tired of hearing this, but I've got to say it: Yes it did remind me of the Hunger Games a bit. But it was also different; because of course in THG the tributes aren't allowed to leave the arena, and Endgame happened all over the world. There were clues the Players had to solve instead of just mindlessly killing each other (though that did happen). But yeah, I just thought of the Hunger Games while reading it. Sorry for those who are done with everyone comparing the two books, but hey it's just my opinion.

In the end, I disliked Endgame a lot. So much even that I gave it just one star, which I've only done to two books I've read so far (City of Glass and one of the Grimm Diary Prequel novella's). So congratulations Endgame, on becoming the third one-star rated book on my Read shelf! Now get out of my face.

My opinion on this book in one gif:


(gif credit)

Read this review and more on my blog October Tune!

In 2013 I read This Is Not a Test a book about a group of teenagers who were hiding in a school to get away from the zombies. Zombies? Yeah, I read a book about zombies, can you believe it? I once said I thought zombies were the Umbridge of mythical/supernatural creatures (ok they're not really mythical nor supernatural but you get what I mean), and that I would avoid books, movies and TV shows about them like the plague. But I did end up reading a couple of zombie books (Warm Bodies, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, etc), and of course TINAT. I was so frustrated with the open ending that I might have cheered when I heard about Please Remain Calm.

This novella of about a hundred pages goes further where the previous book ended, with Rhys and Sloane trying to get away from their hometown and to a safe place that they heard about on the radio. But along the way, they get separated. Rhys ends up  meeting a couple of people who will help him get Sloane back, but nothing really goes according to plan, which is kind of obvious if you're right in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

The story is written from Rhys' point of view, which took a bit for me to get used to. I am just more used to reading from a girl/woman's POV than from a boy/man's, but I guess that's a bit obvious when you're a girl yourself. But in the end, I did like reading from his POV. We meet three new characters in this book; Jess, Lisa and Ainsley, and they were really nice and I liked them a lot. And I was just so sad at what happened to that lovely little family. I mean I think Ainsley wasn't older than five (I think her age was mentioned somewhere in the book but I forgot, oops) and TO SEE THAT LITTLE GIRL CHANGE INTO A ZOMBIE JUST BROKE MY HEART OK!!!

Of course, with the book having only a hundred pages, a lot of stuff happened in a short amount of time, and I thought the book ended way too quickly. And I have to say I am still not really that happy with how it ended, because it still had an open ending. (So fingers crossed for another novella? Okay just kidding. No I'm not).

I liked Courtney Summer's writing, and I am definitely planning on checking out more of her books, just not her zombie books, because I still think zombies are the Umbridge of all the creatures that exist. Sorry not sorry.

My opinion on this book in one gif:


I think people who've read it will understand at which part I did this.. (gif credit)

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Actual rating: 2,5 - I honestly don't know what to think about this book. I heard a lot about it when it was first released, and they were all four or five star reviews and everyone loved this book. So I was convinced I would love it too. But when I finally started reading it, I didn't like it at all. I thought perhaps that I was reading the wrong book, but it was definitely We Were Liars.

First of all, I didn't like the characters. The Sinclairs, some amazing American family with lots of money and a bloody private island with four massive houses on it. They are beautiful, they are rich, they are amazing and they are basically trying to be as emotionless as they can. No, I did not like this family at all. The only one I kind of liked was Gat, who was someone's cousin or something like that, though he was also a bit weird at some points in the story. It was his fault that the group (Cady, Mirren, Johnny and Gat) were called the Liars, though I never really understood why they were called that in the first place. In the end, the only reason I kind of related to Cady was because she had these horrible headaches that sometimes leave her unable to do anything but lie in bed, and I do sometimes have those (not very often anymore luckily, but I used to have them a lot a couple of years back). Other than that, I could NOT relate to any of the characters.

Then there was the 'thing' that had happened on the island that Cady couldn't remember. First of all I had no idea what was going on, later on I started speculating what it could have been (I ended up being so wrong). But the thing is, apparently we jump from 'summer seventeen' to 'summer fifteen' throughout the story but it's never really clear which is which. I was confused all the time because I just had NO idea where we were in the story at that point. It was very very annoying. I did like the little mystery of 'oh god what happened that was so bad Cady can't remember', and when we finally found out, I thought it was kind of well... sad actually.

But yeah, I just didn't enjoy this story that much, and I was actually really glad when I finished. I considered DNF-ing the book several times, but I just wanted to find out what had happened to Cady in 'summer fifteen' so badly that I ended up finishing the book. But now I think I'd rather had just read a spoiler on the internet (even though the summary says you're supposed to lie about the ending, I mean what the hell seriously?). No, We Were Liars was not the book for me, alas. I did like the little map in the front of the book, showing what the island looked like. Pretty handy at some points, because sometimes I just had NO idea what the hell they were talking about (but then they would have been talking about a house or something).

If you like mysteries that revolve around a snobby rich American family, you should definitely check out this book. If you don't, well... You should just do what you want - read the book or don't, it's your choice.

My opinion on this book in one gif:

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I bought this book in 2013 because the summary sounded really interesting, and because the cover looked amazing. And then, just like with The Iron King, I put it on my shelf and didn't read it until now. And now I want to SMACK myself for waiting so long, because wow. Wow wow wow, I LOVED this book! First of all because it takes place in London; or well a town close to London. And nine out of ten times Dystopia books like these happen in America; but this one was in London and that just made me even happier!

Kyla is a sixteen year old girl who's been Slated. Her entire existence has been erased, everything she ever was before - gone. She doesn't remember who she was or why she got Slated in the first place. She is being placed into a new family that already has another adoptive daughter who's been Slated, Amy. I liked her right from the start, mainly because she'd been through the same that Kyla had been through. I wasn't so sure about the parents, and I kept being like that throughout the book. Then there was Dr. Lysander who I kind of liked, Jazz who I liked right from the start, and Ben. Oh Ben. I knew right away, from the moment he appeared in the book, that he was going to be important (and also Kyla's love interest).

But that was the thing, the whole love story was pushed back a bit, and that is what I loved about this book so much. Because most of the time, in a book, when a girl meets a boy she likes, the whole story starts to revolve around that boy. And though this book also kind of revolved around Ben, it also didn't. At least, not as much as usual. I really did not mind the romance in this book, because the story around it was just so amazing I didn't really pay attention to it.

The way Teri Terry told this story just made me want to read on and on and on, and I did. I started it on the fourth and finished it after only two days of reading - one of which I had to work as well. So this book was just so thrilling that I HAD to finish it as soon as possible. I just really liked reading Kyla's story, and I loved reading about her trying to find out who she was before she became Kyla.

I have already ordered the second book of the series, Fractured, way before I even finished this book, because I knew that I had to read the second one as soon as possible. If you want to read an amazing dystopia story set in England, you should definitely check out Slated!

My opinion on this book in one gif:

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I bought this book over a year ago, because I thought the summary sounded interesting. Still it took me this long to actually start reading the book, and that may have been because of the little circle on the cover saying this book was 'The Next Twilight'. After reading the book I can honestly say that the sticker is wrong. This book felt more a bit like the next Mortal Instruments, in my opinion.

There was a girl, with an artistic mother, who turned out to be special. She had a bit of a nerdy best friend and she fell hopelessly in love with a douch-ey guy who kind of clashed with her best friend a bit. Her best friend did also turn out to have a bit of a crush on her. Also someone she loved very dearly got kidnapped by the bad people. Yeah, as I started to read more and more it just sounded more like City of Bones and though I really disliked CoB, I liked The Iron King a bit more. Not really sure why though, because with the entire love-triangle and the kind of insta-love Meghan experienced with Ash it wouldn't really have been the book for me.

I think it's because this book was a bit more scary and gory than TMI was, with some really (imo) disturbing descriptions of things (in a sexual way not a murderous way) being done to humans by the faeries. I also liked this better because they almost immediately went to the faery world, and I liked it when that happens in stories - because I've read a lot of stories like this happening in the human world already, I want to see more fictional worlds!

Still, there is one thing that I didn't like about that fictional world: no map. There was no map in this book and that is SUCH A SHAME! I want to know where all the courts are, where the places Meghan visited are, where all the trods are located; I want to know ALL OF IT!

And now for the characters; like I already said I kept on comparing Meghan to Clary from TMI a lot; she did some dumb things, she screamed almost every time she saw something scary, but in the end I started to like her a bit more (even though she still had the hots for Ash); her best friend who had like four different names in the first five chapters alone, was a bit like Simon (except that he was a 'creature' right from the start and didn't become one later on); I really liked Puck because he was just an awesome character (I don't know how to explain this without spoilering too much). Ash was DE-FI-NI-TE-LY like Jace. I disliked him right from the start, and of course disliked the romance between him and Meghan. To be fair, I started to like him a bit further in the book, but still not a lot.

Then there were some other characters, like Meghan's family (mother, stepfather and little brother Ethan); her real father, king of the Summer court who I imagined looked exactly like Thranduil from the Hobbit (I heard Lee Pace speaking every time he opened his mouth). The pack rats, which were just my favourites, and Grim. I love cats, and this cat (though sometimes a bit bitchy) was just really awesome. I know a lot of people don't like talking animals in movies or books and I honestly don't get that; I personally love it when animals talk (I would love for my cats to be able to talk, but then they'd probably be like 'gimme food' all day long).

I liked the story in general, apart from the whole love triangle thingy that I felt coming up. It was very well written, though sometimes the way things were described were a bit over the top in my opinion. But hey, that Nevernever world was probably a bit over the top sometimes.

In the end, I can say that I liked this book, even though the cover said 'The Next Twilight' and even though it felt like TMI; and I will probably read the other three books in this series as well.

My opinion on this book in one gif:

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When I read Legend for the first time, I enjoyed it very much but was very annoyed by the childish way it was translated (into Dutch). But I did want to continue the series, so I got the other two books as well, in English that is. And I have to say I liked it more in English (though I still liked the story of Legend more). Also I am definitely going to reread Legend in English very soon.

Like with Legend, this book was written from two POV's, from June's and Day's, which was really nice because they weren't together all the time, so we got two different stories in one book. Personally, I liked reading about June a bit more than Day, but I just like June as a character more. As for the other characters, there was one other that I started to like more as I continued reading this book; Anden, the new Elector of the Republic. His character was just very surprising, and I really hope we'll see more of him in the third book.

As you all might know, I am not a fan of love triangles, and I might have groaned when I read about it in this book, especially since I've started to really ship June and Day in this book. Not even a triangle, but a sort of love square, which just made me really sad. I just hope it won't be in the third book so much, but I am just guessing it will be, and that would be such a shame!

In this book, we found out more about the Republic, the Colonies, and even some stuff about the rest of the world. I especially liked the latter, because that doesn't happen a lot in other dystopia novels. Usually, they just concentrate on America (or whatever it will be named), and they leave the rest of the world blank. In Prodigy, we learned more about what happened to the rest of the world, which I just loved!

A lot of exciting things happened in this book, and some of them made me feel really anxious, because I didn't want anyone to get hurt. Of course, people always get hurt in stories like these, and in this book particularly one character that I really really liked got hurt which just made me very sad. I did like the way the story ended, though some minor things were a bit not so nice (okay not really minor things, but shh, spoilers).

I am very excited to start Champion as soon as I can, and I will do that as soon as possible.

My opinion on Prodigy in one gif:

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I love short stories, and I love books that are a compilation of short stories. Last year, around Halloween I read the book Halloween edited by Paula Guran, and this year I decided to read My True Love Gave to Me in December. This book is compiled of twelve short stories all happening around Christmas or New Year's Eve. A lot of well known authors are in this book, including Rainbow Rowell, Stephanie Perkins and Laini Taylor. I am going to review all the stories in separate.

Midnights by Rainbow Rowell - 5 stars

I thought this story was adorable. It happens over the course of a couple of years, and during New Year's Eve. The main characters are Mags and Noel and they are best friends. I just thought they were incredibly sweet together and Rainbow just made me love these characters in only twenty-some pages. I just love her writing (Fangirl is still one of my favourite books, and I adored Eleanor and Park), and I thought it was just such a shame that the story ended!

The Lady and the Fox by Kelly Link - 2 stars

This one was a bit odd. It also happens over the course of a couple of years, and always on Christmas Eve; but it was completely different from Rainbow's story. For most of the time I had no idea what was going on, and that ending was just very strange and very abrupt. No, this is a perfect example of a short story that should have been a complete book.

Angels in the Snow by Matt de la Pena - 4 stars

This was also a very nice story. It's about Shy (yes that is really his name) who is cat-sitting for his boss in a house that is completely empty of food. Also, he doesn't have any money. So basically, he's starving on Christmas Eve. Then he meets the girl who lives above his boss' apartment and they end up becoming friends. I thought it was such a sweet story and I really wanted to read more about these two characters. It was really such a shame the story ended, a bit abruptly in my opinion, but yeah it was so sweet. And the cat. THE CAT!

Polaris is Where You'll Find Me by Jenny Han - 2 stars

Hmm, nah I didn't like this one. First of all it just felt a bit odd, and I didn't really like any of the characters. The ending was also so abrupt, and I just didn't like it. That's basically all I've got to say about this story.

It's a Yuletide Miracle Charlie Brown by Stephanie Perkins - 4 stars

This story started off with me feeling like it would be a bit supernatural-ish. With a girl celebrating the solstice and wanting someone's voice. It turned out to be a normal contemporary story but I really liked it in the end. Though I am not a fan of insta-love, I did really like these two main characters together. They were adorable, and North was just a really sweet kid (he just had a bit of an unfortunate name). Again, this ended a bit abrupt and I just hoped for a bit more but alas!

Your Temporary Santa by David Levithan - 3 stars

I believe this was the only story in this book with a gay couple in it, and I really liked it. The fact that this guy was willing to dress up as Santa for his boyfriend's little sister was just adorable. I didn't really make that much notes for this story, but yeah I thought it was nice.

Krampuslauf by Holly Black - 3 stars

Personally, I thought this story was a bit odd. I mean yeah it was nice with the three girls trying to organise a party in a trailer, but the whole goatboy thing was a bit strange. Perhaps I would have liked this story more if it had been a book but it just felt way too weird for a novella.

What the Hell Have You Done Sophie Roth? by Gayle Forman - 5 stars

I love Gayle Forman's writing. I fell in love with it after reading Just One Day, and I was really excited when I found out she'd written a story for this book. Though I am still not a fan of insta-love I kind of got over it with this story, because the two characters; Sophie and Russell, were just so awesome. Like with the story by David Levithan, I didn't write down much for this story but I just loved it (hence the 5 stars)!

Beer Buckets and Baby Jesus by Myra McEntire - 3 stars

I didn't really feel anything for this story in the beginning, because the main character was a bit of a trouble maker and loved to wreck other people's stuff. But in the end, I really started to like the guy, after he tried to save the play his friend was going to perform in.

Welcome to Christmas, CA by Kiersten White - 4 stars

This story was about a small town called Christmas, where Maria worked as a waitress at the diner. The diner has just gotten a new cook, who seems to know what people want/need to eat before they even order. I really liked this story, because of the cook, Ben. I just liked him right from the start, and he made everyone really happy in that town. This is one of the stories that I would want a sequel off, definitely!

Star of Bethlehem by Ally Carter - 5 stars

In Star of Bethlehem, two girls (one from Iceland, one from America) trade plane tickets so one can go to New York and the other can escape New York instead. We follow the latter to a town called Bethlehem, where she meets the family the Icelandic girl would have gone to and she stays with them for a while. I am not really sure why I liked this story so much, but it's probably just because of that family. They were so nice to the girl hover to read spoiler. and Ethan was so nice as well. The ending was a bit of a surprise to me, but I loved loved LOVED it!

The Girl Who Woke the Dreamer by Laini Taylor - 1 star

I actually didn't read enough of this story to write a good review about it. I didn't like it from the start, it felt a bit weird and then there was a lot of explaning going on before the actual story started. So I just put it down and didn't pick it up again. I am curious for Laini Taylor's books though, but this story just wasn't my cup of tea apparently.

In the end, I really enjoyed My True Love Gave to Me, it had some amazing stories, some not so amazing stories, but it was a very good book. If you want to read some fluffy Christmas stories, you should definitely go and pick up this book!

My opinion on this book in one gif:

Read this review and more on my blog October Tune.

Last year, Doctor Who celebrated its 50th birthday. And for that, eleven of authors were asked to write short stories the Doctor. I read all the eleven stories this year and reviewed them in this post. But a while ago, a twelfth story was released, featuring (of course) the Twelfth Doctor played by Peter Capaldi. This story was written by Holly Black who you all know from books such as The Coldest Girl in Coldtown and recently The Iron Trial (co-written with Cassandra Clare). These are the two books I've written of her, and while I enjoyed the first, I did not like the latter at all (mainly because of Clare, probably). But of course, this is a Doctor Who story, and I love Doctor Who!

First of all, I noticed that Lights Out was written in a first person narrative, something that never happens in a Doctor Who story (except for Something Borrowed the e-short that Richelle Mead wrote for this anniversary series). It was written from the point of view of a character nicknamed Fifty-One. Though I really prefer first person narrative in stories, I found it really weird in this one because I am used to having third person narrative in Doctor Who books. But in the end I got used to it. And secretly I found it a bit of a shame that this story happened between episode one and two of season eight, meaning that Clara wasn't there - I really like Clara and I would love to read more about her. Oh well, I suppose I just have to read a 'proper' DW book then.

I also personally found that Holly Black was trying to squeeze in a bit too many alien mentions. I mean, there was a Silurian and a Blowfish ("Excuse me, have you seen a blowfish driving a sportscar?") and Vinvocci. Pyrovile(/Pyroviles?) were mentioned, and quite a handful of other aliens whose names I didn't really remember. I mean sure, it's good to show that this space station wasn't just used by humans or humanoids but by aliens as well, but this just felt a little bit like boasting to me, like 'oh look at how many aliens I can name in just forty-five pages!'. Imagine being new to Doctor Who and reading about all these different aliens and being like 'what the hell?' yeah, not really a good idea. (Okay, sure you can argue that people new to Doctor Who might not know that there are DW books and might not even know about this story, but still).

Other than that, I enjoyed the story, though it won't be among my favourites of them all. I still think that the story with Ten and Martha was one of the best. But hey, I do really love new Doctor Who stories!

My opinion on this book in one gif: 

Read this review and others on October Tune!

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This has not changed my opinion on this book in any way!

When I first read the summary for this book, I kind of thought it would be a children's book (probably also because of the cover), so I was a bit reluctant to read it. Sure I've read many children's books in the past but I had realised that they weren't really what I wanted to read anymore. But I did end up saying yes and when I started reading the book I realised it wasn't a children's story at all. I actually quite enjoyed it!

This book tells the story of Kitty Hawk, a young girl who's just graduated from high school and wants to go to Alaska to study humpback whales. We follow her as she flies her own plane to Alaska and studies these animals for the whole summer. But then, she gets involved in something dangerous that could cost her her life.

I have to say, at some points there is some story telling, and though I like story telling in books, it felt a bit like an info-dump to me. Sure, the story needed to be told, but not everything all in one go. So yeah, I did like hearing the history of the Gold Rush and learn about whales but at some points I just got so bored with those stories that I wanted to skip ahead to the end of them.

There were also some minor things that didn't really make sense to me; like at one point, when Kitty had landed safely in Juneau, her friend's aunt says 'you made it', to which Kitty replies 'me either'?! (Okay maybe just a little mistake, but I just found it a really odd answer to what was said). And later on, when Kitty's in trouble, she just decides to help out these guys rather than try to get away from them. Sure they turned out to be kind of innocent in the end, but still, you don't just help your kidnappers like that. But besides that, I really liked the story. It was very well written, and lots of things were described beautifully, it kind of made me want to visit Alaska/Canada.

As for the characters, I liked Kitty. She's adventurous and very preceptive, but at some points I just didn't really understand her actions (like what I said underneath the spoiler tag). There was also a guy named Edward (whose name was revealed after Kitty stated thinking about Bella and Edward from Twilight, ha ha ha). I kind of thought he was nice, but I remembered thinking he was going to be quite important somewhere in the story. And I turned out to be right, so yay for intuition! Then there were the 'bad guys', whose names you'll find out when you read the book, and honestly I didn't really think they were that good in what they were doing. From what I understood, they planned on living out in the woods for months eating only energy bars. Don't think that's going to keep you alive, guys!

In the end, I really liked Kitty Hawk and the Curse of the Yukon Gold, and I'll certainly check out the rest of the series. I do hope there's a lot less info-dump story telling going on in the other books, and I hope that the next bad guys she bumps into are a bit smarter than these ones. Then again, these bad guys weren't really bad guys after all.

My opinion on this book in one gif:

Read this review and more on my blog October Tune.

I was so happy when I finally got this book, because the cliffhanger in the last one made me very anxious to get my hands on the next book. But then there it was an I started reading it. And I am ashamed to say it took me quite long to finish it. I started it on the 22nd of October and finished it on the 13th of November; which is a very long time for me to read a book, especially one of a series that I love.

It might have been because I was reading two other books at the same time, and because one of them was so exciting that I put Heir of Fire aside to finish it asap; or because I binge-watched season 4 and 5 of Supernatural for a while. But it was not at all because of the book itself, because I just LOVED it. So. Much.

I had really been hoping for a map of Wendlyn, because that was where Celaena (I can finally write her name correctly without checking it, yay) would be for the entire book, but alas, it was still a map of Erilea.. So it was a bit harder for me to imagine Celaena's time in Wendlyn because of the lack of a map, but I did my best! (I am just going to hope that if someone returns to Wendlyn one day, we'll get a map of that land as well *crosses fingers*).

There were some new characters in this book, the three important ones being Manon (who I didn't really like for the majority of the book), Aedion (who I liked almost right away) and Rowan (who I didn't like at all at first, but who started to grow on me while I was reading more). I really think/hope we'll be seeing more of those three characters in the upcoming books, because I just like all three of them; even Manon after the last couple of chapters. Of course there were the usual characters; the King (U G H), Chaol (<333333) and Dorian (*wraps in blanket*), and yeah I was just glad that they were still included in this story even though Celaena isn't in the castle anymore.

As for the action, there was a lot of it - both magical and non-magical - and it all made me very excited! There was one particular battle part near the end of the book that made me really happy but also very anxious because I am just not very good about reading how my favourite characters are struggling. Hover to read spoiler. It was just so well written and yeah I just think it's very good because it made me feel so scared at some points.

Because Celaena isn't in Erilea anymore, there isn't a lot of Chaol/Celaena going on anymore, and that just made me really sad. There was one other pairing that made me really happy, but of course, nothing lasts forever and yeah, it just left me extremely sad and also a bit mad at the end of the book.

There were still a lot of POV's, and sometimes it would make me confused especially when it was a scene between Rowan and Celaena, or Chaol and Aedion, because I would have NO idea who's POV it was from; and personally I found Manon's parts a bit annoying at first and I had no idea why they were added in the first place. Near the end, I started to understand and I may have started to like Manon a bit more, even though she is an Ironteeth witch. But I loved Heir of Fire so much, and I just can't wait to get my hands on the next book in the series; I can't wait to find out the title, and what the cover is going to look like and I JUST CAN'T WAIT!

If you love Game of Thrones and Young Adult books, the Throne of Glass series is definitely something you should pick up!