Review: The Ring and the Crown by Melissa de la Cruz

First of all can we just take a moment to bask in the amazingness of this cover.

Ok so The Ring and the Crown was a quick, easy entertaining read to get me through my City of Heavenly Fire mourning period. 

By the way I discovered this book through Christine (Xtinemay) of PolandBananasBooks who is a booktuber - if you don’t know who she is she please check her out her reviews are amazing!!

Top Ten Tuesdays: Books That Weren't Worth the Hype aka Books We Kind've Wish Had Never Read...

Top Ten Tuesday is an original weekly meme created by the lovely girls at The Broke and the Bookish. Every week there is a different topic and we will (try to) list our preferences! This week we choose a different topic than what was assigned and in no particular order here are the: 

Books That Weren't Worth the Hype aka Books We Kind of Wish We'd Never Read...

1. Is under construction - We decided to take out Mockingjay because it wasn't that bad.....

2. Nightshade by Andrea Cremer 

3. Luxe by Anna Godbersen  

4. Beautiful Disaster by Jaime McGuire

 

5. Evernight by Claudia Gray

  

6. Fallen by Lauren Kate

  

7. Wither by Lauren DeStefano

 

8. Forever by Maggie Steifvater 

9. The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer

(We couldn't just pick one)

 

10. Across the Universe by Beth Revis

p.s. Our comments and reasons for why we didn't enjoy the books will be up in a few days :)

 
 

Top Ten Tuesday! Favourite Dystopians

Top Ten Tuesday is an original weekly meme created by the lovely girls at The Broke and the Bookish. Every week there is a different topic and we will (try to) list our preferences! This week was a freebie so we chose to list: Best Dystopians in no particular order... 

1. Angelfall It is the apocalypse. It has been 6 weeks since the Angels (Yes, as in angels from Heaven) have been sent to wipe out the human race. After the Angels kidnap Penryn’s wheelchair bound sister, she is forced to side with the enemy - the very hot uh attractive angel - Raffe. They soon form an unlikely friendship and begin to fall in more ways than one.

**WARNING: This book has a few disturbing features and scenes which probably aren't suitable for anyone in year 7 to 9.**

2. Divergent In a world where people are divided by their strongest characteristics, the fraction they choose determines their life. However some are not born to conform to one trait. They are born to diverge, a power perceived to be fatal to all of humanity. 

3. Gone Imagine everyone over the age of 14 just disappears one day. Gone. With all the adults suddenly gone it’s a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: On your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else...

4. Matched Everyone has a partner, everyone is matched. Cassia lives in a world where the government has controls everyone and everything – what you eat, who you marry and even when you die. Cassia is a Matched with Xavier, her best friend but what happens when she starts to doubt her society and starts to fall for the wrong guy? 

5. The Darkest Minds Half of American children have died from a mysterious disease. Unfortunately those remaining haven’t fared much better as they survive with mysterious abilities. Abilities that scare the government who attempt to lock them up, however, there is always room to escape…

6. The Hunger Games We all know this one, a girl Katniss volunteers in place of sister to enter into the Hunger Games a yearly annual tournament for kids aged… to fight to the death. We know this will be in everyone’s Top Ten dystopian’s, but regardless its still a great read and the Catching Fire film is released at the end of the year.

7. The Knife of Never Letting Go Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Todd is stuck in a town where you are never really alone, until one day he finds paradise - there is no Noise. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden -- a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.

8. Under the Never Sky The world is no longer what is used to be, Earth is now ravaged by Aether storms, destructive electrical currents that rip through the sky. These storms threaten the ‘peaceful’ inhabitants of those living in two post-apocalyptic societies, one primitive and the other a futuristic, artificial world. See what happens when two individuals from these rival worlds meet, Perry and Aria, who couldn’t be more different as they discover they have more in common than they first believed…

9. Unwind A futuristic society in which you sure don’t want to be an ‘unwanted teen’ as you’ll most likely become an ‘unwound’. Basically a nice way of saying that you’ll be shipped away to have your organs harvested for someone in ‘need’ – ‘need’ meaning someone who prefers your green eyes over their brown ones. Therefore it’s only natural that some teens aren’t cool with sacrificing themselves for the good of nation…

10. Uglies 

A world in which everyone is born an ‘ugly’, but luckily once you turn 16 the amazing happens!

1. You undergo a mandatory operation to become an exceedingly attractive ‘pretty’.

2. Next, you are then transferred to an uber groovy society in which the only job requirement is have fun. 

Stella Reads: Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

We have our first book of the month! The book we have chosen is called Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi. 

So this is how its going to go down...in a month when everyone has read the book, we will post a review about what we thought about the book and we can discuss! Mrs Christensen has ordered in a few copies of the book so get one while you can! See you in a month...

Synopsis down below. :)

The synopsis: 

WORLDS KEPT THEM APART.

DESTINY BROUGHT THEM TOGETHER.

Aria has lived her whole life in the protected dome of Reverie. Her entire world confined to its spaces, she's never thought to dream of what lies beyond its doors. So when her mother goes missing, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland long enough to find her are slim.

Then Aria meets an outsider named Perry. He's searching for someone too. He's also wild - a savage - but might be her best hope at staying alive.

If they can survive, they are each other's best hope for finding answers.

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Dystopian  

Review: The Selection by Kiera Cass

Concept

It's post world war 4, and America Singer (Yes, America Singer who happens to be both American and singer, SURPRISE) is living in a semi-dystopian world where caste systems dictate where individuals belong in society (kind of like The Hunger Games with the districts). America (the country) now called Ilea, is ruled by a Monarch (King and Queen) and it’s now time for the Prince, Maxon, to chose a wife through a process called The Selection.

I know what your thinking - Kings, Queens, princes… haven’t we all heard this before?  But this book is strangely addictive, and is a combination of the movie a The Prince and Me and the TV show The Bachelor. 

 

What we liked:

First off, Keira Cass’s writing was really easy to read and although quite simple kept us engaged throughout the whole book (all of us reading the book in just two sittings). She made the language a breeze to read and kept the book short and sweet.

We all really enjoyed the concept of the book and the world in which it was set. The Caste system really differentiated The Selection from the long list of dystopian books that are currently on shelves.

Next the plot of the book was great – again the whole of idea of the Selection – 18 Girls battling it out to win the Prince Maxon’s heart is going to be interesting no matter what. Keira slipped in little details such as the dresses America and the others wore to the parties and what the Palace looked like. This allowed us to really become invested in the story and we found ourselves rooting for the characters we wanted to win.

Last but no least (and how could forget) Prince Maxon! A highlight of the book, he was cute and sweet and as the book continued... 

 

What we hated:

Although we really enjoyed The Selection there were few things we weren’t really fans of…

The first is Aspen and the (weird) love triangle that was created. We won't give much away but we found Aspen to be insanely annoying and just a waste of space. He couldn’t take a hint and popped up in very unexpected places – not to mention put America in a few very compromising situations!

Also America's world wasn’t explored enough, as we mentioned earlier we loved the world she created and that was just it we wanted to hear more! Keira Cass threw in details about Ilea but never went back to expand on them and just let them as loose ends. At some points we were even left wondering whether they were even worth putting into the book. Possibly the most frustrating element of the book was the cliffhanger ending, which left us unsatisfied and just plain annoyed as there was so many loose ends. 

Finally there were a few awkward and badly written phrases:

"Aspen was dressed in white. He looked angelic." 

(Very creative imagery...)

That was it. I slapped him. "You idiot!" I whisper-yelled at him. "I hate him! I loved you! I wanted you; all I ever wanted was you!" 

(WHAT EVEN IS WHISPER YELLING? IT DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF WHISPERING!)

"What did stop me was when I heard the gasp that escaped someones mouth as we passed.Maxon and I both turned And there was Aspen I gasped, too"

(REALLY KEIRA WHY SO MANY GASPS)

Read The Selection if you liked:

Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick
The Matched Series by Allie Condie
The Delirium Series by Lauren Oliver
Lola and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
The Bachelor (TV Show)

We give The Selection 3.5 stars out of 5

Well Hello There...

Welcome to Stella Reads! This is a blog dedicated to the oh so exciting subject of books! One of the hardest tasks in reading a book is actually finding one worth reading, so we are here to do the hard work for you! This blog is for those who love books (like us) and those who haven't yet found their true book calling. 

So at the beginning of every month we will be doing a 'Stella Reads: 'insert book title here' (for example Stella Reads: Twilight {WE ARE NOT GOING TO BE READING ANY BOOK BY STEPHANIE MEYER - NO OFFENCE TO HER OR ANYONE THAT LIKES HER}) :) 

This will be kind of like a book club (but not really), as at the end of the month we will post our thoughts on the book and also provide you with an opportunity to comment yourself. 

We are also going to be reviewing and suggesting books we have already read for those who want to read a book we almost 100% guarantee you'll enjoy. Plus we will be posting reviews of some not so good *ok horrible* books that we ah do not suggest - these books will be labelled as 'read at your own risk'. Although you can also let us know whether you disagree with the rating/status of such books.
You can also let us know if you want a book reviewed, your suggestions of good books and warnings for others!

-Stella out :)

p.s

We will make reading go from this:

To this: