May wrap up

This month I've finished a total of 6 books. One of them on my e-reader and one of them is a graphic novel, the first graphic novel I've ever read.

So this is what I've read: 

• P. C. Cast - Divine by Mistake (Partholon, #1)
• Cassandra Clare - City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)
• Karin Slaughter - Faithless (Grant County #5) - E-book
• Ransom Riggs and Cassandra Jean - Miss Peregrine's Home  for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel
• Rainbow Rowell - Fangirl
• Alexandra Bracken - The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds, #1)

So, I've started reading Divine by Mistake with the House of Night series in the back of my head, so I thought it was a YA novel. But when I was a little bit more into the book I found out it was an adult novel and I loved it. The female protagonist is super funny and I was pleasantly surprised by this! I'm definitely going to read the rest of the series.

I started to series this month: The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare and The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. I really enjoyed City of Bones and I can't wait to find out more about this world. I really liked The Darkest Minds too, but I had a bit of a slow start, maybe because I had a lot of questions in the beginning. But I liked the writing and I really enjoyed the book till the end.

Fangirl was lovely. So recognizable and cute. I had a good time reading it. It was a very easy read, very fluffy and I've decided that I want to read more by Rainbow Rowell. It's a welcome variation on all the more 'dark' books I read.

Faithless by Karin Slaughter was exciting. This is a re-read, because I'm re-reading all the books before I start the newest ones. I've read all of them a really long time ago, so I don't remember very much about them. I liked this one very much. Better then the one I've read last month.

May book haul, part 2

So, I know I've shared a pretty big (for me) haul in the beginning of May, but two more books arrived this week and I'd like to share them with you!

So I've bought Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz and Half Bad by Sally Green. I've heard amazing stories about the both of them, so I'm very excited to start these in the near future.

From Goodreads:

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

Half Bad (Half Life Trilogy #1) 
Half Bad by Sally Green is a breathtaking debut novel about one boy's struggle for survival in a hidden society of witches.
You can't read, can't write, but you heal fast, even for a witch.
You get sick if you stay indoors after dark.
You hate White Witches but love Annalise, who is one.
You've been kept in a cage since you were fourteen.
All you've got to do is escape and find Mercury, the Black Witch who eats boys. And do that before your seventeenth birthday. 
Easy.

Without their dust jackets.

Series review: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott

Titles:
• The Alchemyst (2007)
• The Magician (2008)
• The Sorceress (2009)
• The Necromancer (2010)
• The Warlock (2011)
• The Enchantress (2012)

Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on 28 September 1330. Nearly seven hundred years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life. The records show that he died in 1418. But his tomb is empty and Nicholas Flamel lives. The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects - the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world. And that's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it. Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it. Sometimes legends are true. And Sophie and Josh Newman are about to find themselves in the middle of the greatest legend of all time.

"When in doubt, we follow our hearts. Words can be false, images and sounds can be manipulated. But this...' He tapped his chest, over his heart. 'This is always true”

Michael Scott wrote 6 books with a story that only happened in less than 10 days. This series is the outcome. And because of this, the story is super fast paced and very well constructed. There are a lot of twists and turns. Michael Scott added a lot of interesting subplots that are connected to the main plot. While reading this book, you learn a lot of mythology and legends, because lots of the characters are based on them, manipulated to fit into the story. I think that's awesome. I've always been interested in mythology and I like to learn more about it, through reading fantasy stories (like Percy Jackson).

What I also liked about this series, there were no romance involved. I like this because, I always think 'love' in YA novels is a bit to cheesy to me most of the times. The protagonist did not go and find love, but the character development was strong anyway. They switch sides, you see them develop.

The ending to this series was amazing, I never would have guessed this would happen. But I still have a lot of questions. I wanted to know more about Sophie's future, have a bit of a closure on her story. And there were other subplots I wanted to read more about. We didn't find out the fate of Black Hawk, Billy the Kid or even Machiavelli after the action was all cleared up. There was also a rather vague description of what happened with other characters like Scatty, Joan and Virginia. But besides all of this, I did liked the ending. It surprised me and I like surprises!

And how beautiful are those covers! Each book represents an element, and the title a character from the book. The design is beautiful and the spines look awesome next to each other in my bookcase. To be honest, I bought the first book, just because I thought it looked amazing, lol. Cover artist Michael Warner did a great job.

If you love mythology, folklore, history, fantasy, and action, then I highly recommend this series!

May Book Haul

Today my boyfriend texted me that I got a package in the mail, I immediately knew it would be my Book Depository order with lots of books that I've been dying to read! So when I got home, the first thing I did was unboxing my new books, made photos and find a nice spot for them in my bookcases. I'm going to show you the books I've bought and a short description.

This is what I've bought:

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children) by Ransom Riggs
Ransom Riggs's haunting fantasy bestseller adapted to a graphic novel! As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive.

The Archived (The Archived #1) and The Unbound (The Archived #2) by Victoria Schwab
Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Fangirl is a coming-of-age story about fan fiction and first love. It focuses on Cath, who has been a fan of the Simon Snow books her entire life. When both Cath and her twin sister go to college, her sister begins to drift away from the fandom and from Cath, and Cath has to learn to exist outside her comfort zone.

City of Bones and City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare (#1 and #2 in the Mortal Instrument series)
Sixteen-year-old Clary Fray is an ordinary teenager, who likes hanging out in Brooklyn with her friends. But everything changes the night she witnesses a murder, committed by a group of teens armed with medieval weaponry. The murderous group are Shadowhunters, secret warriors dedicated to driving demons out of this dimension and back into their own. Drawn inexorably into a terrifying world, Clary slowly begins to learn the truth about her family - and the battle for the fate of the world.

The Darkest Minds and Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken (The Darkest Minds trilogy)
In the six years since being plucked from her old life and placed in a government-run "rehabilitation camp," the only color that has entered sixteen-year-old Ruby's world is gray of the electric fence surrounding it. The mysterious "Kid-Killer" affliction has left most American children dead, but Ruby is not one of them-she's one of the dangerous ones, the ones who lived.
The ones who developed frightening powers of the mind.

I'm so, so excited to start reading them and I don't know which one to start. Maybe I'll have to start a TBR jar too ;)

April Wrap Up

This month I've read a total of 6 book. I'm still on schedule for my 50 books challenge, so yay! I've finished 4 series this month: The Divergent series, The Shatter Me series, The Seven Realms series and The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. I feel kinda sad that they're all finished!

This is what I've read:

1. Veronica Roth - Allegiant (Divergent, #3)
2. Tahereh Mafi - Unravel Me (Shatter Me, #2)
3. Tahereh Mafi - Unite Me (Shatter Me, #1.5 and #2.5)
4. Tahereh Mafi - Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3)
5. Cinda Williams Chima - The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4)
6. Michael Scott - The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, #6)

I want to write some series reviews about some of the series, so I'm not going to tell lots about them right now. I really liked all the series, loved some of them and was a bit disappointed about one of them..

Reading Challenge: 23/50