Title: Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1)
Author: Robin LaFevers
Published: April, 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Thanks: Houghton Mifflin via NetGalley
Pages: 549
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?

Final Thoughts:
I haven’t had much experience with historical fiction. I look at them in the stores—mostly at their cool covers—and read the sometimes intriguing blurbs, but I always feel uneasy wondering how much fun the writers have had playing around with the true events. Enter Brett . . . who is never without some random YA novel he wants me read and review. And so he came to me and asked—who am I kidding? He doesn’t ask, he just says ‘I sent a book to your kindle,’ smiles, and then runs away before I can argue.

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Titles link back to Goodreads
• The Rook by Daniel O’Malley (purchased)
• Backward Glass by David Lomax (purchased)
• Dark Heart Surrender by Lee Monroe (purchased)
• Spellcaster by Claudia Gray (purchased)
• Steadfast by Claudia Gray (purchased)
• Tiger’s Destiny by Colleen Houck (purchased)

I just realised my blog turned three this week. Wow, that time went fast. It’s hard to think back to a time before I was blogging, before I was reading. The two pretty much coincide with each other. I only started reading (things other than uni textbooks) about six months before I started this blog, before then, I was a tv-show-on-dvd addict.

So…onto the book buying. I did a bit of shopping all around the place this time. I picked up The Rook, Backward Glass and Spellcaster from my local bargin-bin shop. I’d been a bit on the fence about starting Claudia Gray’s latest series, but finding it for a couple dollars sealed that decision. Even if I don’t end up loving the books, it was worth it to have these beautiful covers on my shelves.

Dark Heart Surrender was another one of my online purchases. I found it cheap, and needed it to finish off the trilogy, so I thought I’d better snatch it up while the price was low. As for Tiger’s Destiny, I’m not a big fan of the covers, but I heard good things a couple–maybe a few–years back and decided to start collecting them. So now I just pick them up whenever I come across them. It’s another one of those ‘one day’ series for me.

Here are some of my latest posts if you want to check them out:
Asher, Jay & Mackler, Carolyn, The Future of Us – Loved this book!
Carter, Ally Heist Society #1, Heist Society – Joey’s guest review
Westerfeld, Scott Uglies #1, Uglies – Thought I should finally start this series

That’s it for this time. So, what books have you gotten lately? Which of these books would you recommend I read first? Let me know in the comments.

Title: The Future of Us
Author: Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler
Published: November, 2011 by Simon & Schuster
Thanks: Simon & Schuster, AU
Pages: 356
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

It’s 1996 and very few high school students have ever used the internet. Facebook will not be invented until several years in the future. Emma just got a computer and an America Online CD. She and her best friend Josh power it up and log on – and discover themselves on Facebook in 2011. Everybody wonders what they’ll be like fifteen years in the future. Josh and Emma are about to find out.

Final Thoughts:
I wasn’t into contemporaries back in 2011 when I got given a copy of this at a Becca Fitzpatrick event that Simon & Schuster were hosting, so I’m glad I waited before finally jumping into it. Perhaps I’ve grown tired of paranormals, but it’s as if a switch has since flicked and I can’t get enough of these kinds of books. While this one does feature Time Travel by way of a computer, it’s done in a way that I’d still class this as a contemporary read. It’s full of romance, high school angst, hanging with friends, fretting over possible futures. Basically, it was a lot of fun. I didn’t want this one to end. The fact that it was a standalone made saying goodbye to the final page even harder.

Title: Uglies (Uglies #1)
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Published: February, 2005 by Simon & Schuster
Pages: 425
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Tally can’t wait to turn sixteen and become pretty. Sixteen is the magic number that brings a transformation from repellent Ugly into a stunningly attractive Pretty, and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks, Tally will be there.

But Tally’s new friend, Shay, isn’t sure she wants to be Pretty. She’d rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the Pretty world – and it isn’t very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Final Thoughts:
While the publisher has actually labelled these reprints’ covers with ‘Before The Hunger Games, there was…’, I actually found this older dystopian series reminded me more of Divergent with a bit of The Host spliced in. It was interesting reading it eight years after publication, knowing it came before the mega-series that exploded the genre. Uglies for me, though, didn’t feel quite as high stakes. It was getting there, and I think the second book will probably hit the mark, but starting the series, it seemed to focus more on the survival/relationship side of it than the political issues driving the Pretty initiative.

Title: Heist Society (Heist Society #1)
Author: Ally Carter
Published: February, 2010, by Disney Hyperion
Pages: 287
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

Soon, Kat’s friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring Kat back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat’s father isn’t just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat, there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it’s a spectacularly impossible job? She’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s history–and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

Final Thoughts:
Somehow I knew that I would enjoy this book even before I had even picked it up. This hard-cover copy of Ally Carter’s Heist Society had been sitting on Brett’s shelf for quite some time, untouched. And every time I walked by, I saw it in the corner of my eye and said to myself: I really want to read that, some time. And, oh boy, was I satisfied when I did, at last.

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Titles link back to Goodreads
• Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor (purchased)
• Inferno by Sherrilyn Kenyon (purchased)
• The Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa (purchased)
• Night World: Volume 2 by L.J. Smith (purchased)
• Night World: Volume 3 by L.J. Smith (purchased)
• Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan (purchased)

Another of my Booktopia orders arrived. While I’m not up to reading any of these yet, it’s good to know I have them for when I do. I’m really loving the Gods and Monsters cover, so I’m glad I picked it up. I can stop feeling jealous every time I walk past it in stores.

Here are some of my latest posts if you want to check them out:
YA Presence in Australia Shrinking
Barakiva, Michael, One Man Guy
Kagawa, Julie The Iron Fey #1, The Iron King
Siegel, Philip, The Break-Up Artist

That’s it for this time. So, what books have you gotten lately? Let me know in the comments.

Title: One Man Guy
Author: Michael Barakiva
Published: May, 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Thanks: Macmillan via NetGalley
Pages: 272
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Alek Khederian should have guessed something was wrong when his parents took him to a restaurant. Everyone knows that Armenians never eat out. Between bouts of interrogating the waitress and criticizing the menu, Alek’s parents announce that he’ll be attending summer school in order to bring up his grades. Alek is sure this experience will be the perfect hellish end to his hellish freshman year of high school. He never could’ve predicted that he’d meet someone like Ethan.

Ethan is everything Alek wishes he were: confident, free-spirited, and irreverent. He can’t believe a guy this cool wants to be his friend. And before long, it seems like Ethan wants to be more than friends. Alek has never thought about having a boyfriend—he’s barely ever had a girlfriend—but maybe it’s time to think again.

Final Thoughts:
This book was so much fun! It was just what I needed after a five week slog through my last book. I was finished One Man Guy in a matter of hours, not even bothering to get dressed for the day. I just couldn’t stop reading. It was refreshing to find gay YA where everyone was as accepting as they were, skipping the angst in favour of a light-hearted yet heart-warming piece of escapism. Set amidst New York and the outer suburbs, it took well advantage of the setting and created something that I felt added an extra dimension to the rom-com playing out in my head.