Raging Star by Moira Young

I loved this series.  I loved the characters.  I LOVED the landscape.  I loved dialect (and I especially loved that I kept on keepin' on despite the awkwardness of the dialect at first).  I have started several students on this series and while it is not for everyone, you would be surprised how many students really cleave to Saba and her gang despite the difficult reading material and odd sentence structure.  It's a GREAT story!  There were a few things I was unhappy about but only because I wanted more of them (more Emmi, more traveling, more conflict with DeMalo, more JACK, never enough Jack).  On the whole though, I loved the message and the follow through in the trilogy, it did not let me down as many often do.

Final Recommendation: Obviously your gonna finish the series, if you like kick-butt heroins, super-cool dystopian landscapes, adventure & a sprinklin' of romance

City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

Was it long?  Totally!  Was it worth it?  Mostly. It wasn't like I was just gonna stop @ #5, although I will admit that I felt City of Fallen Angels felt mostly like angsty filler material before the big showdown. I liked City of Heavenly Fire. I would have liked it to have been oh let's say 300 pages shorter but beggars can't be choosers. I loved the development of friendships that carried out through this series and really solidified in this final edition. I liked the message that love is important and that it can carry you through loss. I liked the introduction of the next Shadowhunter series with Emma Carstairs as the lead (I will obviously read that). I just wanted more epic baddy fights, a better end for Maureen Brown and some other stuff that I will not share due to it's spoileryness. 

Final Recommendations: You are going to read this regardless of my recommendation because you love Shadowhunters and you have read a collective 10,000 pages to get to this part where Clary & Jace finally make out (which is NOT a spoiler, you knew it was coming, how sad would have been if it had not)

The One by Kiera Cass

Finishing a series is always hard. You have so many expectations, things you want to see happen, things you expect to see happen. There are characters you have grown to love and admire and you hate to see them go. There is also the problem of finishing a series in real time. I read The Elite over a year ago and it was hard for me to remember all that happened throughout the series, especially with my penchant for loving YA dystopians (they all begin to blend together after a while). I had to do a quick review to get myself back on track with this one (may I suggest http://recaptains.blogspot.com/ ). I must say I was a little underwhelmed. This was not one of my favorite series overall. It lacked in the depth of a lot of current YA dystopians. There was very loose world building overall. May of the events in America's life seemed to easy, they all just fell so nicely into place. And there were a lot of ends left unexplained (like the Southern Rebels, did they just give up? & Illea's Diary, whatever happened with that?). I can see how my middle school students would LOVE it. 

Final Recommendations: If you love LOVE, and romance, if you are a fan of a slightly irrational but strong female lead, if you read all the other books (come one you at least have to finish the series), it's a great series for teens, the content is fun but not too in depth

Sea of Shadows by Kelley Armstrong

The book was a slow burn, but once it started going, I could NOT put it down. It had all of the things that I like in a fantasy: magic, mythical beasts (like super awesome ones: giant Thunderbirds, acid-spitting Death Worms, & zombie-esq Shadow Stalkers), and super-awesome female leads. That's right TWINS!! Cause what makes a kick-ass main character kick-assier? Two of 'em! Plus when you have two great main characters, you also get two HOT love interests (this is a YA novel after all, why not)! 

Final Recommendations: if you like fantasy, a little bit of magic, unique mythical creatures, animal companions, epic treks, sassy female heroins, a little bit o romance

Noggin by John Corey Whaley

I had high hopes for this one.  I love weird contemporaries.  But for some reason I just did not connect with this story.  I liked the narrator and I understood the thought behind this novel.  What would it be like to come back 5 years after you died?  It's a great premise with lots of opportunity for great emotional revelations.  But, much like his previous release, Where Things Come Back, I feel like there was not enough substance for the amount of book.  There were some good vignettes, but that could not carry the whole book.

Final recommendations: if you like slightly weird contemporary, unrequited love, impossible circumstances

Not a Book Review, More Of A Pat on the Back & A Request

YAY!!!  I have reached "Side-Kick" status over @ the Recaptains!  If you are not familiar with this wonderful resource yet, you should totally go check them out!  The Recaptains pride themselves on "saving series one book at a time."  Remember how you read book two of that series a year and a half ago?  And then you had to painfully wait for the next in the series to be released?  You've picked it up from your local bookstore only to realize that YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST BOOK!!!  Enter the Recaptains.  They have a whole slew of reviews that break down what happened step by step in your favorite books.  Don't like spoilers?  This site is not for you.  But if you are like me and are either a) getting too old or b) read too much, this site is the perfect place to go to jog your failing memory.  And if you are so inclined, you can read a few reviews that I wrote my very own self!  Enjoy & you're welcome :)

http://recaptains.blogspot.nl/

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

What did I think?  You know how sometimes there are books that are so wholly sad and filled with all the feels you could ever feel and it makes it too hard to to really funnel your thoughts into actual critical ideas about the book?  This is that book for me.  It was all just too full for me as a mom, and a teacher, and a sister and a former teenager, I felt it all.  This book had many beautiful moments and many wonderful quotable quotes.  I guess this isn't really a review but more so a lack of a review and a recommendation for you to read it yourself and come to your own conclusions.

My favorite quote: "And maybe what growing up really means is knowing that you don't have to be just the character, going whichever way the story says.  It's knowing that you could be the author instead."

Final Recommendations: if you enjoy the feels (all of them), lovers of contemporary, a good "next read" if you enjoyed: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Eleanor & Park or Looking for Alaska.