iLoveBooks28

My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent was a really interesting read, and it was completely different from anything I've ever read before; I don't think there are many novels focusing on banshees out there!

My one problem was the beginning of the relationship between Kaylee and Nash. I saw that there was a legitimate reason for Nash being interested in talking to Kaylee, but I don't understand why he likes her so much, honestly. Not that she's a bad character or anything.. In My Soul to Lose, the 50-ish page prequel, Kaylee mentions Nash in passing saying:

"The guy on the left was a junior named Nash Hudson, whose pick of the week -- Amber-something-or-other -- was already seated. Showing up at homecoming with Nash would have been all the revenge I could ask for against Toby. But that wasn't gonna happen. I wasn't even a blip on Nash Hudson's social radar."

It just doesn't seem realistic to me for Nash to come up to Kaylee after simply hearing her voice and wanting to talk to her because of bean sidhe-ness and then falling in love with her from that one night. ... *Insta-love alert!* The book takes place in about a week, and Nash and Kaylee act like they've been together for MUCH longer than that throughout the book.

In the end, my absolute love for the rest of the book allowed me to overlook my annoyance at this one aspect of it.

Overall, it was a very good book. I'm currently reading book 2, My Soul to Save because I have the Vol. 1 bind-up. I think (hope) that this will be one of the few long series that actually gets better with each new book! And I LOVE TOD (just saying).

This review is pretty much going to be one huge spoiler. I can't really talk about it without ruining the big spoiler. Sorry! However, if you want to know what I thought in non-spoiler terms, I LOVED the main plotline, but I really didn't like Ben, the love interest. He was just another Edward Cullen (that was a little mean. He wasn't as bad as Edward.).

Unraveling was really great, in some aspects. I loved the whole portal-jumping and alternate-universe thing. The whole idea was very thought-provoking and interesting. It would be REALLY weird to travel to other universes, and I loved the chapters that took place in Ben's earth and T. Barclay's earth (is that his name...?? I read this almost a month ago, sorry if that's wrong).

The main issue I had with this book was Ben. Throughout the entire book, I got the impression that he had been stalking Janelle since the sixth grade. He memorized what she had for lunch every day when she was eleven (she's seventeen-eighteen-ish now), he knows what books she read two years ago... Sometimes I don't remember what books I read two years ago. And I certainly don't know what I had for lunch in sixth grade!! The whole situation with him and Janelle just seemed kind of weird to me. He knows everything about her, but they had never had a conversation. He STALKS her, and she has trouble remembering his name in the beginning. He might have been an okay character, but this whole stalker-idea just turned me off of him.

Plus, there's this line that Janelle says referring to Ben:

”He is handsome in that kind of tall, dark, mysterious and tortured kind of way."

When I read this line, I literally burst out laughing. In no way, at all, is Ben tall, dark, mysterious, or tortured. I mean, he is sort of mysterious to Janelle, with the whole being-able-to-put-molecules-together thing, but honestly..

Another thing that really annoyed me was that Alex died. He was literally my favorite character. It annoyed me when he wasn't really in it for the majority of the book, but then to kill him? For no reason? If I was planning on reading the rest of the series, it would have been for Alex. I understand that in a lot of good books, good characters die. But I felt that Alex's death was for absolutely no reason. And now Janelle has no one except for her brother and Struz.

One of the highlights of the book for me was the fact that Ben left in the portal. I hope he doesn't come back.

Wow.

I read both Unearthly and Hallowed in April 2012 and I was SO EXCITED when this came out. I LOVED THIS BOOK. While I'm probably going to go into a depression missing these characters, I am okay with how it ended. Boundless picks up shortly after Hallowed: Clara is about to leave to go off to Stanford with Angela and Christian....

I loved the new setting. I felt as if I was actually at Stanford. It was really cool, especially because the setting actually exists. You could Google Earth the setting and see the actual place that was actually described in the book.

Here's a brief history of me and these characters: after Unearthly ended, I was Team Tucker. After Hallowed, I completely pivoted to Team Christian. Like 100%. I still loved Tucker, but in my eyes Christian was so much better and there was no way anyone, not even Cynthia Hand could convince me otherwise.

...and then Boundless happened. I don't know how she did it. But I began to like Tucker more in this book. I wouldn't say I now don't like Christian, but I definitely saw Tucker and Clara as a more feasible option. I liked the Clara/Tucker scenes more than the Clara/Christian scenes. And I didn't know who to root for in the end because I loved them both in completely different ways and they each bring something different out of Clara. And I'm okay with who she ended up with. That's all I'm going to say on the topic, because I don't want to spoil anyone. I'm okay with it. My one complaint in that regard would be the epilogue. The one she doesn't end up with isn't in the epilogue and everyone else is. Which bothered me.

Now onto non-love-triangle stuff......

I loved how Clara gets two visions in this one. It was really different considering in the other two she only gets one. She also grows a lot as a character and as an angel-blood in this book. I loved learning about all the new powers she is able to use.

I didn't read Radiant, the ebook in between Hallowed and Boundless. I was worried that the book would be missing something vital without having read it, but I was fine. I think you probably would have been able to figure some things out having to do with Angela faster if you have read it, though.

Overall, I LOVED this book. If you are on the fence about continuing the series do it.

I had to read The Turn of the Screw for school. When I first heard what it was about, it sounded really interesting and intriguing. It's about this woman (we don't know her name) who applies for a job as a Governess to take care of two children, Miles and Flora. The children were previously under the care of their uncle, who came in possession of them after their parents died in war. The Governess takes the job under the conditions that she never ever EVER contacts the children's uncle. Ever.

But soon, the Governess starts to see people watching through the windows. She soon finds out from Mrs. Grose (the housekeeper) that the people she has been seeing are dead. The Governess believes that these ghosts (Peter Quint - the valet, and Miss Jessel - the previous Governess) are trying to contact and haunt the children...

This book was super short (my copy only had 87 pages), but it took a long time to read. The text is really dense, and in my copy the words were tiny, the margins were small, and there was practically no space between lines.

As for the story itself, I found it a bid odd. I, personally, thought that the Governess was hallucinating the entire time. And I thought there was something up with Mrs. Grose as well. I just find it hard to believe that she would agree with everything without having proof Even after the Governess said Miss Jessel was right in front of her, and Mrs. Grose saw nothing, she still believed her! What is this madness?

I also found it kind of odd how the Governess somehow just knows that Jessel and Quint are after the children. How does she know this? That was weird. And Miles and Flora...eh. Despite the Governess' very high opinions of them, I honestly didn't care either way about them. Maybe it was just me.

The ending just confused me. I'm not sure exactly what happened or why or how it happened. All I know about the ending is that Miles is dead and Quint somehow has to do with it..

Overall, this book was just OK for me. Didn't love it, but didn't hate it either.