Booking Through Thursday: Second First Time

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme, hosted by btt2, about (mostly) books and reading.

We all know the beauty of reading a really wonderful book for the first time—when everything about the story and the writing and the timing click to make a reader’s perfect storm … but it’s fleeting, because you can never read that book for the first time again.

So … if you could magically reset things so that you had the chance to read a favorite book/series again for the first time … which would you choose? And why?

And then, since tastes change … Do you think it would have the same affect on you, reading it now, as it did when you read it the first time? Would you love it just as much? Would you risk it?

I'm going to have to do an old & new one, since I seriously can't just pick one book, the old being one of the first books that made an impression and started the reading addiction, and the new being the only one that has since.

The Old
Speak, when I was 13 I borrowed it from my school library, and once I was old enough to buy it myself, I did. Though I haven't read it again since then, because I have the story set in my head, and I feel like I've given it a martyr complex, that if I do read it again- that it'll change into something less. I've read so many since Speak, so many I can't even count, so I don't know if it would make the same impression that it did then, and I don't really want to find out.

The New
There are a few selected books that I'd love to read for the first time again, like Harry Potter, Splintered, Ultraviolet, Vampire Academy, and I've read them many times. Though there's only one that's really plagued me in a good and bad way. It's an immoral one, and a little twisted. But it is the only one since that's imposed so many questions and rants, and actually made my heart hurt by the end of it. So painfully beautiful and well written. I haven't read it since the first time either. I've given it the same complex.

The book?

Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne

Waiting on Wednesday (#7)

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases.

 

This week, I'm looking forward to...

 

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson Expected publication: September 24th 2013 by Delacorte

Not long, now!

 

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics.

But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.
 
Nobody fights the Epics... nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart—the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning—and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

 

 What are you waiting on this week?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teaser Tuesday (6)

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Title: Poison
Author: Bridget Zinn

Release date: March 12th 2013    

Publisher:  Disney Hyperion

Place: 5%

 

Sixteen-year-old Kyra, a highly-skilled potions master, is the only one who knows her kingdom is on the verge of destruction—which means she’s the only one who can save it. Faced with no other choice, Kyra decides to do what she does best: poison the kingdom’s future ruler, who also happens to be her former best friend.

But, for the first time ever, her poisoned dart . . . misses.

Now a fugitive instead of a hero, Kyra is caught in a game of hide-and-seek with the king’s army and her potioner ex-boyfriend, Hal. At least she’s not alone. She’s armed with her vital potions, a too-cute pig, and Fred, the charming adventurer she can’t stop thinking about. Kyra is determined to get herself a second chance (at murder), but will she be able to find and defeat the princess before Hal and the army find her?

 

 

 

"It was run-down and seedy, yes, but it had been her home- where she'd made a name for herself, fallen in love with the wrong man, and betrayed everyone she'd ever known.

Back before she'd tried to murder the princess."

 

Link me to yours! :) 

 

 

 

Review: In the Shadow of Blackbirds

In the Shadow of Blackbirds
Author: Cat Winters

Publication Date: April 2nd 2013        

Publisher: Amulet Books

 In 1918, the world seems on the verge of apocalypse. Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines of a brutal war, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort, but she herself has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment, however, she’s forced to rethink her entire way of looking at life and death, for her first love—a boy who died in battle—returns in spirit form. But what does he want from her?

I- what did I just read?

I've read a few Historical books lately, I kind of got sucked in after reading Maid of Secrets , but before that, and seeing what In the Shadow of Blackbirds was about, I decided it wasn't for me, and what a shame that would've been. After I've heard a load of things about it, I decided to try it, oh and I'm so glad that I did and I can honestly say I have never read anything like it. It was just...stunning and brilliant and original.

 

It's such a beautiful, beautiful book that's shrouded in mystery, and the cover just is, captures the essence and setting in one, along with holding true to the photograph. In the Shadow of Blackbird's is not for the faint hearted,  it's grim and grey and eerie, set in 1918 where death was in the air, on your street, in your house, and killed your co-workers, next-door neighbours, friends and family in the form of the Spanish Influenza. If that wasn't sombre enough, the middle of the first World War was going on, and our main character Mary Shelley Black's (named after the Mary Shelley) childhood friend Stephen Embers enlisted months ago.

Stacking The Shelves (#6) & Recap

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

 

I have bought...

 

                                             

• The Space Between by Brenna Yovanoff
• The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee
• Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

 

Three totally different ones this time.

 

Since it's been slow, I've had time to practice my colours.

 

What did you get this week?

 

 

A recap of posts this week

• Monday I reviewed Maid of Secrets by Jennifer McGowan
• Teaser Tuesday from Chantress by Amy Butler Greenfield
• Waiting on Wednesday, Dear Killerby Katherine Ewell
• Booking Through Thursday: Neither a Borrower
• Friday I reviewed Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

This week I have read:

• Chantress by Amy Butler Greenfield
• The Originals by Cat Patrick

Review: Born Wicked

 Born Wicked
Author: Jessica Spotswood
Release date: February 7th 2012 

Publisher: Putnam Juvenile

Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they’re witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave.

Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word... especially after she finds her mother’s diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family’s destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra.

If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren’t safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood—not even from each other.


After the Cahill Sisters mother dies, all responsibility is passed down to the oldest, Cate. She takes it upon herself  to raise her little sister, to keep the middle child out of trouble, to watch out for them to the best of her ability. There's a reason, besides the obvious, that Cate takes it very seriously. They're witches, and in New England,  in an alternate history, that's a very bad thing. Though basically, being born female is a bad thing. If you're found guilty of witchcraft, you're trialled (sometimes), sent away to an asylum, ship worked, or you just...disappear. Just like magic. Poof.  New England never used to be like this,  witches had control, and religion was a choice as was freedom. Threatened, the Brotherhood rose with the first Terror, casting out the witches, controlling everything and suffocating them, and God forbid you don't do as they say or you'll be acting against the Lord and  perceived as a witch. The brotherhood prefer their women weak, uneducated, obedient and as dull as dishwater.