Legend

by Marie Lu

    Pictured above is one of my absolute, all time and forever standing, favorite series. The first book is called Legend, and it was no lie, this story is legendary! 

This was Marie Lu's first series and it was my first time reading something by her, and she knocked it out of the park completely. These books were so good, that now I feel like I need to read everything she writes,  just in case is as good as this series is. 

This story takes place in a futuristic dystopia where the government is ingrained in everyone lives. The society is split between the nice government sector and everything else is slums. All kids take an exam to determine they're worth and potential, and all kids take them, from the wealthiest kids to the ones living in poverty. 

We follow a young man named Daniel, who is known as Day, who scored perfectly on these exams, too perfect for being from the slums. Despite his perfect score, he becomes an outlaw when he starts stealing medicine for his sick kid brother. He took to the streets in order to protect his family, while his older brother worked to support their mother and the youngest brother once their father was out of the picture. Day mad a name for himself as a sort of robin-hood, and he lives on the streets.

We switch between Day and a young solider named June. June received a perfect score on her exams and had potential for a high ranking position in the military alongside her older brother and caretaker. They'd lost their parents to the service, and once June looses her brother protecting a medical facility during a robbery, she sets out to get revenge on her empires most wanted criminal and who she thinks is responsible for the death of her brother. Day. 

They go on to meet and June sees her empire isn't what it seems while Day rises to fame as the people start to fight back and as he aligns with groups of rebel fighters. 

The first three books, Legend, Prodigy, and Champion are the story of Day and June, but the fourth, Rebel, is a sequel told from a different point of view years after this rebellion. Rebel just came out last year and I was so happy to see it and it really added so much to the story and gave me the closure and opportunity to say goodbye to these character that I really needed. 

I cannot recommend this series enough and I want to thank Marie Lu for this masterpiece. 

I've read other series by her, and I plan on doing a full review on them, but this series, in my opinion, remains her best work. 

:)

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue 

by V. E. Schwab 

    I love V.E. Schwabs writing and I was so excited to pick up this novel! I had no idea what it was about when I bought it but it I enjoyed the story. 

This is a realistic fiction about a young woman named Adeline LaRue born in the 1700’s. She never fit in in her life, she didn’t want to marry or be forced into cooking and laundry and being a mother. 

Her modern ideas came from the village “crazy lady” who prayed to the old gods. This woman taught Adeline (Addie) to pray to these god, but to never pray at night. 

Addie grew into a young woman and her parents were forcing her into marriage. On the night of the wedding, Addie took off into the forest and prayed for someone to save her from the empty life ahead of her. She prayed all day and into the night, and in the night, a god answered. 

He granted her her wish, to live her life as she pleased for as long as she pleased. It came with unexpected side-effects. Everyone forgot her and she could leave no mark behind.

This story is about her and how she lived for 300 years, never making a mark of her existence, but she found a loophole that allowed her to inspire others to mark her down for her. She inspired painters, writers, and musicians throughout history. 

About 200 pages in, once we learn about her curse, or deal, I started to wonder where this story was going, but then she meets someone. She met a man who remembers her. 

She falls in love with him, but soon finds out he’s made his own deal with the same old god at night. 

As they discover what his deal means, Addie tries and outplay this old god, as they have a long history, 300 years of keeping each other company. 

The way V.E Schawb wrote this old god, obviously meant to be the devil, was memorizing. There's one section where he describes who he is, and it gave me chills reading it. In the end, it was a great story and would be a lovely movie. I highly recommend this book to anyone who needs a break from your usual romance or fantasy novels, as this is a refreshing story of love and the human desire for the freedom to make your own choices in life. 

:)

 Dark Life 

by Kat Falls

    I don't usually re-read books, especially those I bought over 10 years ago, but this book is the exception. I bought this book out of a junior high book catalog and I enjoy it every time I read it. It's a futuristic dystopian/utopia where the outer boarders of the world's continents have collapsed into the sea and people have adapted and built structures that allow them to live underwater. 

We follow the story of a young man who is one of the first in the first generation to have been born and lived his entire life in a house under the surface. Rumors have started going about how the underwater pressure affected the brains of the children born under and that it gave them special abilities, known as a "dark gift". These are just rumors, aren't they?

Our young protagonist is an adventurer at heart, exploring the ruins of sunken humanity. He's out in a sunken building when he runs into a girl there. She is looking for clues on how to find her long lost brother.
Another part of this book is underwater pirating and scavenging for loot lost beneath the surface. Pirates are just as dangerous underwater as they are above and soon our main characters are tangled up in matters they might not understand.

I loved the details of this book and how it describes the underwater housing and how society changed to split between surfacers and people who lived beneath the waves. This was written for younger readers but it doesn't have that kiddy feel and I enjoy this fast-paced, futuristic, underwater tale every time I pick it back up.

:)

The Love Interest 

by Cale Dietrich

    It's be loved or be killed in this stand alone novel from Cale Dietrich.

This is one book I picked up on a whim (meaning the cover looked interesting. It is what it is), and I am so glad I did! It was one of the most unique novels I've read in a long time. 

It's a realistic fiction, slightly dystopian, young adult twisted romance. 

This world is set up exactly like ours, only there are academy's that mold young men and women into the perfect matches for important people in the 'real' world (I'll refer to them as VIP's). These academy's determine successful people who are most likely to change the world for the better, given the chance and the right support system from their romantic partner. 

Therefore, they build the perfect match for them. These matches that are created are called "Love Interests', and they're sent out into the world of the VIP they were created for. Since people are unpredictable to a certain level, multiple love interests compete for the love of the one VIP. Once the VIP declares their love for one of the love interest's, the other is killed by the academy. 

The story is told from a male love interests point of view. At these academies, all sorts of 'types' are generated, meaning they create bad boys, nerds, sport jocks, and the goody-two-shoes. All these boys are trained to look, act, and live their assigned personas. The protagonist is a goody-two-shoes, perfect all-American, ripped farmer boy, and the story starts with his assignment as a possible love interest to a female VIP. 

He's given a brief overview of her, and she is a very smart high school student, both of  her parents are doctors and she's expected to make huge breakthroughs in advancing medicine later in her life. 

He's then moved to her town at the start of the school year, he's given fake parents from the academy (failed love interests that were not killed pose as his parents) and he sees the other love interest that is fighting for girls affection. 

The competing love interest is the bad-boy type, and he does it very well. The race for her love begins.

The main character and the second love interest dance around each other at first, not interacting but both making moves, being coached by a relationship adviser from the academy that is sent out to watch and see whom the VIP chooses so they can dispose of the failed love interest. 

After the girl wants a break from both of them to be able to decide, the boys develop a type of friendship, each regretting that they have to compete to the death. After a lifetime of being told who to be, they find freedom and support in each other. 

Can they escape the grasp of the academy? Can they live for themselves and choose who to love? Read this book to find out! 

I loved this book so much and it really got me thinking about relationships, as in, when you see two people who really don't seem like it would make sense between them, like the beautiful girl and the nerdy boy, or the jock dating the STEM girl, its just such an interesting way of looking at relationships! I would beware of that beautiful someone that moves into your town and you and them seem to click instantly, maybe you're the VIP and they're your assigned Love Interest. 

This was such a fast-paced read and honestly I wish it was longer. My favorite part of this story was everything, I cannot recommend it enough. 

:)

The Kingkiller Chronicles

by Patrick Rothfuss

         Welcome back to my book blog! I'll be giving my review over the book pictured above, Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, the first two installments of Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles. I read these books in 2015, so it has been a few years, but I think that is the best way to tell what was unique and memorable about these two books. This story was a stepping stone for me, they were my first dive into fantasy novels that involved the fey, world-building and a completely different magic system than I've ever come across before. 

A few words I would use to describe this story are: fantasy, science-fiction, thought provoking and thorough. The way Rothfuss set up this story was each 1000 page book contains a single day of the main characters life. It's told through the first person perspective of Kvothe, our hero of sorts, and Rothfuss expertly builds the world around his experiences, creating many different subcultures within Kvothe's society and time. Kvothe's story is one of a self-made hero born of tragedy. He is smart and has a natural curiosity towards the magic that exists in this world.

This story has one of the most interesting magic systems I've ever come across. Magic can be taught to anyone and involves splitting your thoughts either between two or three ways. Rothfuss keeps us close inside of Kvothe's thoughts and it was one of the closest and most thrilling second-hand use of magic I have ever experienced. Another big fantasy theme in this story was the importance of names (hence the title The Name of the Wind). A character could not command an element unless they knew its name, and Rothfuss never gave an example of one of these names, which I thought was very interesting and added to the mystery of the magic and the story itself. 

Another element of this story I want to mention is the romance and music in this story. Kvothe came from musically inclined culture, and Rothfuss describe the way Kvothe played and sang like music itself. The description was heard with the eyes and sounded beautiful in the way only old wooden instruments can. I cannot describe how much I loved that side of the main character. Music is how Kvothe meets the love interest of this story, who is a women that adds so much to the story by being strong and mysterious.

Another of my favorite elements came from one of the subcultures in this world. These people were great warriors and fighters, but were also very spiritual and honest. They used spoken word and sign language to communicate so their meaning was perfectly clear. How Rothfuss created this culture and way of communicating speaks to his creativity as a writer and it's another element of this story that has stuck with me throughout the years.   

One part of this story that I found unsatisfying and slightly pointless was Kvothe's interaction with the Fey creatures. Kvothe interacts briefly with two Fey characters throughout the two books, but for me it felt forced and did not add much to the plot, but it could all come together in the last book. 

There is one last book to come to bring this story to a close. However, it has been a long time coming and I worry it might never be finished. The Name of the Wind was first released in 2007, The Wise Man's Fear was released in 2011, and the finale, The Door of Stone, has yet to be released. It was supposed to be finished in 2017, but Rothfuss has made several comments on social media that he will released it when it is done. I worry the author might have backed himself into a corner of sorts, leaving so many questions unanswered in the first two books, as in why it's called The Kingkiller Chronicles, we did not meet any kings in the first two books. I am excited to see how Kvothe's story ends. 

I obviously truly enjoy reading the first two installments of this series and am waiting not-so-patiently for the big finale to this series! 

:)