Alice Clayton - Wallbanger

I think my roommate thinks I'm crazy now...but I can't stop laughing! This book is too much, too cute, too funny, too witty, it's everything! Aww man, when I read the title of the book I was like, Wallbanger? Really? Okay, here we go, another raunchy read with tons of hot sex and a little bit of romantic development, but it's got 4.25 stars on Goodreads so that has to mean something...and it definitely did my friends.
Wallbanger was a perfect blend of sexual frustration, romantic buildup, witty banter, and conflicted characters to make my whole week. I really appreciated the fact that Ms Clayton made the characters wait so long to have sex, and trust me, you might be huffing and puffing that it's one of those slow books that take forever to get to the good parts, but really it's not, it is totally worth it. The whole book was fun, there was no boring setting description or long, useless pages where the character goes on and on talking about her life and childhood and blah blah blah like some authors like to do. No, this got to the juicy stuff fairly quickly, and thank God for that. 

As the title--and the cover--might hint, Wallbanger is about...well...a guy, Simon, who likes to sex girls so hard his bed bangs against the wall. Repeatedly. And loudly (lmao). No other way to put it really. And our protagonist, poor Caroline, has to endure his wallbanging every night, leaving her tired and pissed each day after, even more so because she hasn't had an orgasm in 7 months due to a stupid one night stand that left her hooha traumatized (yes, her hooha).
Having to listen to the sounds of glorious sex night after night, Caroline finally explodes one night when she was on the verge of bringing the big O back, but the wallbanging interrupted her. Pissed and sexually frustrated, she walks over to her next door neighbor's door and bangs on it until he opens. And when he opens, what a sight she is treated to: a yummy, six-foot-something guy with steel abs, tanned skin, dark hair, and a pair of blue eyes that would make any girl swoon. Not to mention with his hips wrapped in a white sheet and his...ahem...still at attention. Oh and did I mention that Caroline was wearing a pink baby doll and she had totally forgotten about this? Yup. 

From here on out, Caroline and Simon's relationship develops slowly but sweetly: first as enemies, then as grudging neighbors, then as friends, and finally as a loving couple. What makes this book so great is the fact that the author developed a friendship between the two characters before writing their sex scenes. That is something very rare between a man and a woman but very valuable, because their relationship was based on friendship first rather than sex, and so it made it more believable of a romance. This is one of those books where I can't really say I could have asked for better characters because they both had so much personality, and I can say for the first time that I wasn't frustrated with them at all, and that's really rare. 

Of course, I wouldn't be a book critic without having something to criticize, and that would be the ending. I was really happy that Caroline finally got her O, but then it felt like the rest of the book was sex, sex, sex, sex, and towards the end it lost some of the depth that I loved. I wouldn't know what ending to suggest instead, but I could have asked for a better one. But anyways, it is too small of a thing to impact my outlook on the whole book, so I still give it 4.75 stars. I hope to read more from this author because I  loved her writing style and character development. 

So all that aside...I'm back bitches!! Woohooo!! Damn it feels good, I am so freaking happy that finals are over and I have time to finally read in peace! No tests to worry about, no midterms or finals or stupid roommate drama, just me and my wonderful books. Oh my books, you never fail to make me happy, hahaha. Anyways, more reviews coming soon!     

Book Love,

Lena

Sorry... :(

My poor, poor blog!! I've been neglecting you in favor of that pesky thing called college. But seriously, to be honest, I have no idea when the next time I'll be able to blog will be. I've read a couple books that I still need to review but just reading the book takes up a lot of time and I need to study too! Everyone who's in college knows that the junior and senior years are the most important in terms of GPA, so unfortunately there won't be any neglecting of my studies :(. Waaaaaahhhhh!!!!!! This is me right now....

 Sadness to the max!!

Quinn Loftis - Beyond the Veil/Fate and Fury

So for this time around, I decided to review two books in one post because, one, they are from the same series and two, I read them back to back so the two story lines kind of blended together and now I can't remember what happened in one book and what happened in the other (whoops!). 

So first of all, I have to say that Quinn Loftis is a goddess. I don't know how she does it, but her books are the wittiest and most exciting YA books I have ever read, and that's saying something because I've read A LOT. I honestly don't know how she comes up with the dialogue that she does, because I couldn't do that in a million years. She's such a dynamic writer; the way that she makes her characters talk is just so funny and so refreshingly different from other authors. 

I'm not actually going to give an overview of the plot of each book because that would result in a really long post (though it's probably going to be long anyways), so I'm just going to give a really short summary that spans the two books. I'm going to outline the biggest points of the story, so just a heads up that there's going to be a lot of spoilers.
Basically, Sally now knows that because she is a healer, she is compatible with the Canis lupus and is therefore Costin's mate. Desdemona is still a huge threat that has to be dealt with; the Great Luna has made the Fae and the Canis Lupus compatible and made them more fertile; Desdemona makes a deal with the Warlock King, Cypher, who turns out to be Lilly's (Jacque's mom's) mate; Jen finds out that she's pregnant but the Fates want her baby's life in exchange for letting her live when she was supposed to die; All the males (Costin, Vasile, Drake, Fane, Adam, Decebel, Gavril, and Sorin) get captured and put in the In-Between, a place where their worst fears are replayed in their minds over and over again. The girls rescue the males but their minds have been seriously damaged due to seeing their fears come to life over and over again for weeks. Because of this, the males have shut out their mates because they don't want their "darkness" to affect them. The girls get really pissed that their mates are sparing them of this "darkness" because alleviating the darkness is what their job as mates is. So the girls tell their mates that their touch is uninvited, so now if they do touch the girls they'll feel a lot of pain. Then, a spell is put on all the girls that makes them believe and feel that they're being tortured and touched against their will but the males can't touch their mates to give them comfort because of the whole "their touch is uninvited" thing. The spell eventually gets lifted off the girls but now their minds are really damaged too. Meanwhile, Cypher and Lilly are off to try and enlist the help of the Elves; the Wolves, Elves, and Fae fight against Desdemona and kill her, but then a new threat arrives and he turns out to be Reyaz, Cypher's brother.

So now for the good stuff. I'll start with Lilly and Cypher, because I was just so surprised about Lilly getting a mate but then so happy too. I was like "you go Jacque's mom!" Cypher and her were gettin' it on like teenagers in a dark corner of the library. I didn't know that Lilly had that much spunk in her, she's pretty much like Jacque with her sarcasm and smart-ass replies. I was really glad for Cypher and that Lilly was able to pull him out of the dark. They were so cute together! It didn't feel at all awkward that I was reading about Jacque's mom get her flirt on; I was really happy that she got her happy ending after all. 

Regarding Sally and Costin, I was a little apprehensive about reading about them cuz I never felt like they were very interesting characters, but I actually got really into them and was disappointed that the books didn't include them more. Jacque and Jen already got their two books so I was expecting that the 5th and 6th books would be about Sally and Costin, but Jacque and Jen stole a lot of Sally's spotlight, what with Jen being pregnant and Jacque slipping into a spell-induced coma because of Desdemona. I feel like though we did get a lot of scenes between Sally and Costin, they didn't seem extra special because all the other couples were getting the same amount of book time. I was also disappointed that we didn't see Sally's powers as a healer develop more. I really was hoping that Peri would  train her to be an awesome healer so that when the time to battle Desdemona came she would be a badass that defeated Mona, but her role was really downplayed and that bothered me a lot. Maybe we'll see her develop more in the next books, because the way that Fate and Fury ended tells me that there has to be another book coming. But aside from that, it was really nice to see how Sally and Costin developed as a couple throughout the books. It was nice to see Sally emerge out of her protective shell and become more confident in her womanly powers since she's always been the least confident one of the three. 

Now, about Jen, oooh that girl, she's a piece of work that one. First of all, how could she think that Decebel was going to hate her for something she has no power over? If she had chosen to die instead of live, then there never even would have been the possibility of a baby. And I'm sorry if this sounds really callous, but you can have more babies if you lose this one, and she might not fully recover from losing this one, but she will have other babies. Now I don't know what's going to happen because Decebel went behind Jen's back and decided to die in place of his baby in 9 months. That was a dumb-ass move. Seriously Dec? You think Jennifer is going to recover from losing you but she won't recover from losing the baby? SERIOUSLY? She  would NEVER recover from losing you, even if you severed the bond. Severing the bond might keep her from dying immediately but she would still die from grief, that can happen you know, and then the baby is going to be an orphan and all that would have been for nothing. I'm soooo frustrated with this couple because they keep doing stupid stuff!!! Aaaaaaargh!!!

And then there's the other stupid couple, Jacque and Fane. I don't know what the hell happened to Fane but he needs to snap out of it. At this moment he is soooo not worthy of Jacque. He's been treating her like shit, scaring her and emotionally hurting her. I get that his mind isn't fully mended yet because he suffered longer than anyone else in the In-Between, but that's no excuse to shut out your mate and hurt her. I don't know how he's going to fix it, but he needs to and soon, cuz Jacque doesn't deserve that. I hope that in the next book everything turns out ok, because they are the original couple and they should be happy. 

I was really glad that Sorin and Crina also found their mates because the Great Luna made them compatible with the Fae, but at the same time it was a little weird how fast they came together and how they were all like "Oh, you're my mate, so now I'll love you forever, no questions asked". It would have been better if in the other books there had been some sort of attraction between the couples so that this wasn't so sudden. It just really made it seem like they fell in love because of the bond and not because of who they are as individuals. Take for example Elle and Sorin. Elle said that she'd never thought of Sorin that way, but now, because of the bond, she says that he is "beautiful" and feels a really strong attraction to him. 

Overall, I feel like the books were just too tragic and too filled with anguish compared to the past books. It was tragedy after tragedy without any respite.  Don't get me wrong, I still loved the books and would give them 5 stars, but it seriously was tragic; I was crying way more than I was laughing. What made it so tragic is that EVERYONE was going through something. There was no couple that was truly happy or that could give us a break from all the sadness and hopelessness, which I feel the author should have included. Maybe at least have Fane and Jacque be happy because they're the "oldest" couple in terms of book sequence and thus should have all their problems resolved. So now I have to wait until the next book gets released which could be as long as 2 years!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Quinn, you can't do this to meeeee!! I really hope this is not the case and she has a book out in about 6 months because way too many things were left unresolved. Alas, that is all for now. I hope you enjoyed this review! Until next time

Book Love
Lena

Thea Harrison - Lord's Fall

Sooooo...I have really mixed feelings about this book. It's not like it was bad or anything, but its not like it was great either. It was missing something that would have made it better, but I just can't put my finger on it. It might be that it was too subdued for my liking. I think it was too big of a change from the passion and fast-paced action of the first book, Dragon Bound, which first introduced Pia and Dragos and how their romance developed. So here's what I didn't like about it:

For one thing, for the first 140 pages or so of the book, Pia and Dragos weren't together because Pia had convinced Dragos to let her go on a diplomatic mission down to the Elven Demesne in Charleston to repair their broken alliance (which Dragos had caused because in the first book, he had crossed the Elven border to chase after Pia when it was forbidden). So they weren't broken up or anything, but they were physically separated and it kinda sucked. 

I also found it really wrong that Pia, who is pregnant and starting to show, has no qualms about going into battle and putting her baby at risk. I understand that she's a tough bitch and won't cower behind Dragos, but dude, you're PREGNANT. You're going to have a BABY. A baby which you could possibly lose if you get injured. So I thought that was a little callous of her and thoughtless. 

The ending of the book also bothered me a bit because even though I was super happy that she finally had the baby, who has a conscience even as a fetus and who's been talking to Pia in her dreams for a long time, We don't even get to see mother and child together. The book ends with Pia sleeping with her head on Dragos lap because she's so tired after giving birth, so Dragos is holding the baby looking out the window into the lake all content and whatnot. Call me a sappy fool, but I kind of wanted Pia to be awake so she and Dragos could be like "Aww, look at him, isn't he the most perfect thing you've ever seen?" or something like that. 

So I felt that, overall, the baby got ignored a bit too much. I'd have liked it more if the book was a bit more about the baby and maybe her having some complication with the pregnancy. Instead it was about how she had to repair the alliance between the Wyr and the Elves, which all of a sudden turned into some battle to save the world from an elf who was being controlled by a powerful object made by a god. I guess the book was lacking in cohesion and seemed a bit fragmented. There just wasn't enough build up of tension or back story about the God Machines. It felt like I was reading two separate stories, one about Pia going to the Elven Demesne to try to repair the alliance and another about the battle against this crazy elf. It would have been better if the book was about, like I said, complications with her pregnancy or her secret of being a unicorn getting out or something like that, and her getting kidnapped by people who want to use her powers to their advantage. That would have been a really good read.

So I guess there wasn't much to like about this book, even the sex scenes were crappy compared to the first book, where they were crazy for each other and the scenes were really steamy. To be honest, I didn't feel their connection as strongly as I did in the first book, but maybe that's just me. 

But anyways, I FINALLY GOT TO POST AN ACTUAL REVIEW!!!! Yay for Spring Break!!! I'm hoping I'll be able to get 7 or 8 books in this week, and it might actually happen cuz I'm book starved and I read through this book like I was eating candy. Until next time!

Book Love,

Lena           

Finals, Finals, Finals!!!

Hi guys, I know it's been really long since I lasted posted a new entry, but school has kept me really busy. It's terrible!! I haven't done anything but study for weeks, and it still won't stop! Now I have to start studying for finals which are next week and which I am sure I am going to do really bad in. Honestly, professors need to stop assigning so much work! It's just not doable! I have three finals next week, two on Tuesday and one on Friday, and the one on Friday I have to prepare 19 essays because the teacher is going to pick 4 out of the 19 and we have to write on them. It's crazy right?! Who the hell makes your write 19 essays just to pick 4? Maybe 10 is okay, 8 is even better, but 19?! NO! Just kill me now, I don't think I'll survive finals week anyways.

But then after finals comes Spring Break, and you know what that means? I can read all I want!!!! Yaaaaaay!! I guess some people would be like "lame!" but to me its the best possible way I could spend my Spring Break, relaxing and not doing anything but reading. So hang in with me, there'll be a post up in about a week or so, and hopefully several more after that!

Kresley Cole - A Hunger Like No Other

God save me from submissive heroines and asshole heroes. What. The. Hell. Lachlain was an absolute asshole for like the first half of the book! He was almost like the bad guy rather than the good guy. He treated Emma like hell: he touched her sexually I don't know how many times and she didn't even want it. Her body might've, but not her heart. And then one time he almost raped her! WTF! He also strangled her until a blood vessel in her eye popped, screamed at her and told her she disgusted him. All because she's a vampire. I get that he was tortured by a vampire, and the most powerful one at that, for like 150 years, but are you really going to take it out on an innocent girl who has literally never hurt a fly? Nuh uh, go to hell dude. I was kinda able to forgive him the last couple chapters of the book, but only because Emma became a baddass  and was like "f*** you" and wouldn't let herself be pushed around and Lachlain started to realize what an asshole he'd been and whatnot. And what really, really, reaaaaaaaally bothered me and almost made me stop reading was when they had sex for the first time. But before I go into that, let me give you a brief overview of the book. 

So Lachlain, a Scottish Lykae (werewolf), was captured by Demestriu, the baddest baddass of vampires, about 150 years ago and has been tortured ever since. But one day, he scents his mate and is determined not to lose her trail since he has been looking for her for over 900 years. So to get away, he cuts off his leg and goes after her. However, because he's been tortured for so long, his mind isn't exactly intact, and so when he realizes that, out of all the creatures that she could be, his mate is a vampire, he goes a bit berserk. So from this point in the book on, we get a lot of frustrating and hateful dialogue between Emma and Lachlain. All she wants to do is return to her family, but Lachlain won't let her leave and basically has her imprisoned. The worst part is that he feels absolutely no regret. He will later on, but right now he feels only hatred and disgust for Emma. When they get to Kinevane, Lachlain's castle, which is where they've been trying to get to all this time, their relationship is a little better. But then Lachlain goes ahead and ruins it by telling her that she is in fact his mate and that he lied to her when he told her that she wasn't. So Emma flips a shit and is all hurt and whatnot. Lachlain also hasn't told tell her that when the full moon comes, he's going to be mad with lust and he has to sleep with her. But Emma is a virgin, and he's going to be unable to be gentle with her because the moon is going to be driving him crazy. 

When the day of the full moon comes, Emma tries to run away but Lachlain comes after her, mad with lust, and takes her virginity. From behind. And Emma screams with pain but it doesn't register with him. That part just made me shudder and feel kind of disgusted. He eventually makes it better but everyone knows that if you're a virgin, doing it from behind for the first time is like the biggest no no ever. It'll hurt so much worse, and Lachlain does that. And worse, Emma was totally fine with it. So that part was really hard to get through. 

After they have sex, they become a whole lot closer and affectionate with each other. But then some vampires attack Kinevane and Emma goes with them because they'll lead her to her father, who just happens to be Demestriu. After a big battle scene, Emma kills her father. Then after some other stuff, Emma and Lachlain are reunited and admit that they love each other and it's a happily ever after. 

So this book might not have been the best, but it still had its merits. I don't think I'll ever reread it because it was a bit torturous to read the first half, but it wasn't a total loss. I'd give it about 3.5/5 stars. Hopefully the next book is better! Until next time!

Book Love,

Lena          

Mira Lyn Kelly - Waking Up Married

Okaaaayyy. Now THAT was disappointing. Talk about an anticlimactic ending. I mean, all the heroine wanted was a baby and the book ends without her getting it? WTF? That's just mean. Also, I hate it when authors just decide to quickly wrap up the conflict between the hero and heroine in the last couple pages of the book. It's like book whiplash. Also, the characters deserve more than just a couple pages of conflict resolution when THE WHOLE BOOK was about their problems, but the resolution is only a couple pages? NOT. COOL. I also didn't like that Megan wanted a baby so much but at the end she's just like "Why don't we wait a couple months, maybe a year to have the baby" And Connor was super disappointed and hurt but then he just brushes it off and then the book ends. Yeah. Talk about a crappy ending. It left me wanting so much. If there had been an epilogue or something where it's two years later and Megan is nine months pregnant or something I would have been a lot more appeased. Oh well. 

Anyways, so the book starts out with Megan bent over a toilet because she had so much to drink the night before and is now paying the price. Connor is there with her, explaining to her what happened the night before and how they ended up married. We then get a flashback to the night before. Megan is in Vegas for her cousin Gail's wedding, and that night she is at a club with Gail's two other bridesmaids as a kind of get-to-know-you outing. There, she meets Connor. Originally, her plan was to walk up to him to ask him if he would walk out of the club with her to make the other bridesmaids think that she's gonna get some. But, things don't go as planned when Connor actually invites her to sit down and talk to him. Throughout the night, they get to know each other and realize that both of them don't believe in love and they both want a child. So Connor decides that she is "the one", but not in the sense that she is his soul mate. It is in the sense that she has the same goals and outlook as he does, and he knows that they can build a life together where they are a family and they offer each other comfort and friendship, but not love. So Connor whisks Megan to a Vegas chapel to get married. The problem is that Megan wakes up the next morning not being able to remember much and panicking because she slept with a stranger (They actually didn't do anything though). Although she wants a divorce, Connor is determined to convince her to give the marriage a try, and tells her all the reasons they discussed last night of why it's a good idea for them to remain married. Megan then agrees to give the marriage a trial period of three months, but NO SEX. Connor, of course, is confident that he can seduce her, and he does. So Megan moves into his apartment and starts living with him. However, doubts and insecurities soon start to plague her  when Connor keeps being this "perfect husband" who doesn't get mad at anything and disregards all her little quirks and annoying habits. Megan starts worrying that he's so determined to make the marriage work that he is purposely ignoring all the stuff that bugs him about her. After they finally fight it out and Megan decides to trust him, she also decides she is ready to have a baby with him. Just when they're about to do it, Connor sees love for him shining in Megan's eyes, which is a deal breaker. Since he is not capable of loving her, Megan decides to move out and divorce him, since she cannot bear the pain of loving someone who will never love her back. But of course, romance books always having a happy ending, and Connor realizes that he has been miserable since she left and it is because he loves her. And so a happy, but crappy, ending.             

I wish I had picked up a different book to read, this one really wasted my time. Oh well, it happens, it's definitely not the first time and it won't be the last. Until next time!

Book Love,

Lena