The Three Musketeers by: Alexandre Dumas

“The Three Musketeers tell the story of the early adventures of the young Gascon gentleman d’Artagnan & his three friends from the regiment of the King’s Musketeers – Athos, Porthos & Aramis. Under the watchful eye of their patron M. de Treville, the four defend the honour of the regiment against the guards of the Cardinal Richelieu, & the honor of the queen against the machinations of the Cardinal himself as the power struggles of 17th-century France are vividly played out in the background. But their most dangerous encounter is with the Cardinal’s spy: Milady, one of literature’s most memorable female villains.” -Goodreads
This story had me enraptured from the first page. From cover to cover it was witty, funny, and exciting. Dumas kept me engaged and on the edge of my seat and despite his characters being more than a hundred years old I still felt a strong attachment them. This speaks volumes of the strength of Dumas’ writing prowess. At some points I could hardly sit still in my seat, I was laughing out loud while reading about d’Artagnan and his fateful encounter with each musketeer in turn and all their misfit adventures. At times I found myself holding my breath and gripping the book tightly as I read about our heroes daring fights, near death experiences, the betrayals they experienced, and the pains they all went through. The story starts fast-paced and doesn’t slow down until the last page and Dumas’ third person point of view allows the reader to really view the action from all sides. This book can only be described as one of a kind. I truly loved reading this story and would recommend it for anyone who is interested in a classic.
This book had excellent and engaging characters, the writing was above superb, and the plot was exciting and fast paced. Given the chance I will gladly read the sequel and the triquel. I rate this book five out of five.

Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) By: Marissa Meyer

The second book in the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer. This is the retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in a new and inventive way. With twists, betrayal, and attitude to match it all Meyer brings this story out as the new fantasy/sci-fi adventure series to read.

With Cress just coming out I thought it prudent to final get myself caught up on this series and read Scarlet. This book was okay. I rated it a four out of five stars on Goodreads.
The plot had a lot of ups and downs for me- it had a lot of action which I liked, but it also had a few boring and repetitive bits.

Most of what I remember from Cinder was her mooning over prince Kai and complaining about her stepmom, but not a lot of stuff was actually going on, it was more like the all of the story arcs were being set up, which Meyer did work pretty well, but it was still just a bit lacking. In Scarlet we finally get to see the results to those story arcs and they were exciting.

In Scarlet the main thing that I didn’t like was Scarlet. The whole book would have been way better off if all of her bits had just been cut out. She walks into a bar to deliver some vegetables to the owner and boom it was practically insta-love at first sight with her and Wolf, it made me want to grind my teeth together. Her character has practically no personality, all she ever goes on about is her missing grandmother. And she’s always angry, if she’s not ranting over some small injustice then she’s just throwing stuff. On the very first page she’s throwing tomatoes at a wall and ranting about the police, second page she’s yelling at a bunch of bar patrons and starting a bar fight, and her character grows not an ounce through the entire story. She was just a limp piece of lettuce through the entire novel.

What I did like about the story, though, was everything else. Everything else was perfect. Cinder escapes from prison and on her way out picks up Captain Thorne. Captain Thorne is awesome. I love Captain Thorne. Captain Thorne should get his own book… err maybe not, but he was my favorite character in the entire novel and I can’t wait to see him in Cress.
Getting a POV from Kai was really good too. I liked the way he thought about things; his confused feelings towards Cinder, his hatred toward Queen Levana, and the love he has for his country. They’re all jumbled up in his head as he tries to do what’s best for everyone.
Cinder gets a definite upgrade (and I’m not just talking about her new arm and leg) her character is on the move and not slowing down for anyone. Instead of going to Dr. Erland in Africa she heads to Europe to find Ms. Benoit, Scarlet’s grandmother, to get some answers about her forgotten years. The answers that Cinder finds are quite honestly, pretty weird and alot sad.
The ending to Scarlet had me thrown pretty hard. We get a POV from Queen Levana and it left me just plain confused, but also very very intrigued.

This is definitely a series to read. It has just about anything a person could ask for in a book series: good characters (mostly), interesting plot, and most of all excellent writing. If you haven’t read the Lunar Chronicles yet you should definitely pick it up now.

http://www.marissameyer.com/book/book-two/

Allegiant (Divergent #3) Veronica Roth

Divergent became the most popular and most anticipated book series along with Legend, Mortal Instruments, and Heroes of Olympus. I loved this book series it made me cry, laugh, and actually think about moral issues and about “doing the right thing.” Not many books can hold that kind of sway over a reader, but Veronica Roth delivers a trilogy that is so touching that you have to put real thought into it. This series has taken me through a real journey and I’m glad to see where it’s finally landed. It’s not the best ending ever created, but it’s not the worst either, it’s an ending that you’ll remember.

The story basically starts off where it ended in the last book, Insurgent. Tris and her friends are in a jail cell awaiting their trials after having shown the video of Tris’s ancestor telling everyone about why the city was created and what the Divergent are there for. Truth be told, I didn’t actually remember half of the characters or what the video actually said because of the long wait in between reading the two books. However, even though I never actually re-remembered the characters, the message was repeated over in the story and had many mentions and recalls.

I think what made this book so awesome was that we got duel perspectives; one POV was from Tris like in all of the other books and the other was from Tobias/Four. We got more details about Tobias’s mother and father and how growing up with them was like and how it made him into the person he was currently. I liked all of the back information we got about his life and family.

The book takes into detail about the conflict between the Faction believers (or also known as the Allegiant) and the FactionLess. The FactionLess want to stay inside of the safety of the fence and leave the outside world alone, the Allegiant want to leave the Town and try to help the people outside. Tris and Tobias end up joining the Allegiant and leaving the Town to see what is actually outside of the fence.

But then *major plot twist* the whole thing is just a ruse by the government in the outside world (I really never saw that one coming). It turns out the people who live past the fence built the town into what it was and they created the factions to try and create desirable genes… or the Divergent.

After that everything seems to fall into a familiar pattern, except this time we get to learn about it through Tobias’s eyes as well. Tris and her friends learn about how these government had betrayed them and are going to wipe the memories of all of the town’s people so they can reset the program. So after Tris and Tobias start having couple’s issues, a revolution fails, people die, and Tris gets put on a council or something they all decide that instead of letting the government erase the memories of all their friends and families they’re going to erase the memories of the people working for the government. That one seemed very stretched to me, instead of releasing the memory serum on the government people I don’t know why they just didn’t decide to inoculate everyone in the town, that sounds way more reasonable.

In the end though that’s what they do, erase everyone’s memories, but in the process of that Tris dies. I was in the middle of my French class when I got to that part and I just started crying, it was terrible. I’d hate to say that the ending was terrible, but in a situation like this I wish Roth had done something different. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t really like it either, but I can see why it was done like that it. It gave a final and resolute end to a great series. I’m glad to have read this book and been able to learn so much from it.
I rate the book 4/5

P.S.
I’m excited for the movie set to come out this year, I hope it’s fantastic and really portrays that books as it should.

The Girl with the Iron Touch by: Kady Cross

In 1897 London, something not quite human is about to awaken
When mechanical genius Emily is kidnapped by rogue automatons, Finley Jayne and her fellow misfits fear the worst. What’s left of their archenemy, The Machinist, hungers to be resurrected, and Emily must transplant his consciousness into one of his automatons—or forfeit her friends’ lives.
With Griffin being mysteriously tormented by the Aether, the young duke’s sanity is close to the breaking point. Seeking help, Finley turns to Jack Dandy, but trusting the master criminal is as dangerous as controlling her dark side. When Jack kisses her, Finley must finally confront her true feelings for him…and for Griffin.
Meanwhile, Sam is searching everywhere for Emily, from Whitechapel’s desolate alleyways to Mayfair’s elegant mansions. He would walk into hell for her, but the choice she must make will test them more than they could imagine.
To save those she cares about, Emily must confront The Machinist’s ultimate creation—an automaton more human than machine. And if she’s to have any chance at triumphing, she must summon a strength even she doesn’t know she has….

I think this book was the better of all the other books, I actually wasn’t bored at any bits or pieces. The whole book though was really lovey dovey. The author paired up every single character with someone, Sam+Emily, Griffin+Finley, Jack+Mila, and Jasper+Wildcat. I felt like I was on a dating show, a romance novel rather then steampunk/action.
Other than then all the hook-ups I did like the book, even though I think the story should have ended at this book, but instead the ending left more to be said and even though this book series is okay, four book just seems like a bit to much. An author needs to know when to end the series. Look at the House of Night series, Jesus Christ I think they’re on book ten or something, I stopped reading at book six, I just got so damn fed up with the cliffhangers and a lack of ending, is anyone still reading those?

Anyway back to The Girl with the Iron Touch, good book, decent ending, hook-ups okay, be warned Griffin and Finley have sex in this one, it’s pretty failed, I guess if you were like fourteen it would work, but it was greatly romanticized.
Here’s a thought, what if Jack+Mila and Griffin+Finley become swingers. I really don’t like Griffin, I prefer jack still.
Okay, I’m going to stop there before I go off on another tangent, I rate the book 4/5.

Abandon by: Meg Cabot

Though she tries returning to the life she knew before the accident, Pierce can’t help but feel at once a part of this world, and apart from it. Yet she’s never alone . . . because someone is always watching her. Escape from the realm of the dead is impossible when someone there wants you back.
But now she’s moved to a new town. Maybe at her new school, she can start fresh. Maybe she can stop feeling so afraid.
Only she can’t. Because even here, he finds her. That’s how desperately he wants her back. She knows he’s no guardian angel, and his dark world isn’t exactly heaven, yet she can’t stay away . . . especially since he always appears when she least expects it, but exactly when she needs him most.
But if she lets herself fall any further, she may just find herself back in the one place she most fears: the Underworld.

A very good story. The one thing that I hated and loved the most about this book was the writing style. The story is told in first person through the eyes of Pierce, our sweet-hearted protagonist. The best way that I can describe how the story is written is by comparing it to the ocean tide. It sweeps up on to the beach like when Pierce is thinking in present tense and then it wooshes back to the past. That’s what it’s like through the whole book, in the present but then suddenly in the past, every few pages Pierce ends up telling a story about something that’s happened to her, there are four major things that she retells.

The first story is when she first met John when she was seven. After her Grandfather’s funeral Pierce is left alone to wander around the cemetery when she comes across a bird with a broken wing. Her mother being a bird scientist or what not young Pierce thinks that if she can capture the bird she can have her mom help it. But instead helping the bird Pierce ends up killing it by startling the bird into taking flight and flying straight into a wall where it breaks it’s neck. John then appears and at Pierce’s request brings the bird back to life. End of story one.

Pierce lives the rest of her life without telling anyone about John, but then she dies at age fifteen. This is the second thing that happens to Pierce. After again trying to help a bird Pierce trips on her scarf and drowns in the pool where she then awakens in the Underworld. After some general confusion about where she is Pierce finds John and he takes her back to his castle/mansion (there’s not a lot description about it) and I’m pretty sure he tries to seduce her, especially with that diamond that’s suppose to protect her from Furies. Pierce is having none of it though and throws a cup of tea in his face and runs away, effectively coming back to life.

The third story is when a jeweler trie to steal the diamond that John gave to Pierce while she was in the Underworld. The jeweler claims that the diamond was stolen and was going to take it from Pierce. While in the process of practically choking Pierce with her chain John shows up and causes the jeweler to have a heart attack. John would have right out killed the man, but Pierce begged him not to.

The last story, which is the saddest, is after Pierce’s ex-best friend kills herself. Pierce is determined to find out why Hannah committed suicide and sets her suspicions on a teacher, Mr. Meuller. After putting herself in Mr. Meuller’s sights Pierce sets a trap to reveal that the teacher was sexually abusing his students. Pierce goes to a private tutoring session with Mr. Meullar, her evidence was going to be gathered by the camera she put in her back-pack to record him, and she epically fails. After Mr. Meuller turns out the classroom lights the camera becomes useless for lack of lighting. However as soon as the teacher is about to touch Pierce John shows up to save her… by breaking every bone in the teacher’s hand. He has anger issues and again Pierce has to talk him out of killing the teacher.

After the whole incident with the teacher is done with all of her peers end up bullying and harassing her because they’re all apparently stupid and blame not Mr. Meuller for the incident but Pierce. Her mother relocates herself and Pierce to Isle Heuros(or something, I’m terrible with spanish), where she grew up. Pierce is not very impressed with her new home, but makes do. Until John starts showing up again.

There is of course the usual high-school drama, and teen melodramatics. Everyone at Pierce’s new school is classified by what wing they’re in, A-wing is for rich kids, D-wing is for the basket cases, and I guess the B’s and C’s are just extras. Pierce is a D-wing, so of course she’s naturally outcast, except when the A-wingers find out that Pierce’s father is super rich and that she lives in a gated community. They want Pierce to let them use her garage so they can build a coffin for some school ritual and because she lives in a gated community the juniors won’t be able to get the coffin (It’s a weird tradition).

After a few hurricane warnings and deaths and a meeting with the cemetery care-taker Pierce is finally able to piece together everything that’s happening around her. Both the jeweler and the teacher were Furies, which is why they tried to hurt her, to hurt John, who they hate, because John’s in love with her (like that wasn’t obvious). And it also turns out that Pierce’s grandmother is also a Fury, and is the reason that she died. Having given her the scarf that she tripped over and having set everything up so that Pierce would drown. After this discovery John takes her back to the Underworld to protect her and the story ends. FML. The story was pretty epic, I just wished it had been longer and more fleshed out, it would have been a lot better that way.
I rate the book at 3.5/5, a little low I know, but there were somethings that I had serious issues with so I couldn’t just give it a four, but I really did love the story so I couldn’t just give it a three. And with that I got three and a half.
I’ll definitely be getting the second book, which I know is longer, Yay! Hopefully I’ll be able to give that book a four.