Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes - Series Review/Recap/Overlook

Bear with me, this review/recap/overlook will include spoilers and my own personal opinions of the events that take place in the books Falling Kingdoms, Rebel Spring, Gathering Darkness, Frozen Tides, and Crystal Storm. If any of these are spoiled for you in the upcoming post, it is now your own fault, for I have given you this warning. I, in no way, own Falling Kingdoms or the characters in it.

Clearly, this being about the first 5 books in a rather long, tasking series, this will be a super long post. I will try my hardest to keep spoilers at the minimum, despite my prior warning, and I will do my best to keep this in sections. I will talk about the character evolution, the relationship evolution, and the plot evolution. As a reminder, these are my opinions and I don't mean to offend anyone.

Evolution of Characters

Princess Cleiona Aurora (Cleo) Bellos of Auranos: It's safe to say that Cleo is one of my favourite characters. Her transition from book one Cleo to book 5 Cleo is amazing and truly inspiring. She's forced to become this strong, deceitful person so quickly, you can't help but fall in love with her. In the first book, she is so happy-go-lucky and loose, she hates the Limerians by the end of book one, understandable. By the end of book five, though, she's in love with her worst enemy. Strong, proud, and willing to do anything to get her throne back. All the loss she has endured, it's only fair that something should finally go her way.

Prince Magnus Lukas Damora of Limeros: Magnus, like all the main characters, also went through a great transition. It's obvious in the first book how closed off and cold he is toward everyone, which is no surprise given his parents. The only light being Lucia in his life for so long. The end of book five was so incredibly heartbreaking for me, reading what happens to him (shan't spoil). After being with Cleo through so much, he finally opens up and when he does, it just turns on him. I just feel so bad for him. And I love him. So much.

Princess Lucia Eva Damora of Limeros: Being almost the sole hope for so many people must be a struggle in itself, but when everyone is fighting over the same power, it must be so much harder. I'm not saying that Lucia's loss of Alexius is anything to excuse the destruction she caused after the fact, but I feel like she should be cut some slack at the very least. It's possible, I think, for Lucia to redeem herself in the last book, having finally seen through the thick fog that blinded her for so long.

Jonas Agallon: Regardless of what I've read about Jonas, I find he has very few layers to his character. Simple peasant boy turned rebel. In ways it's so predictable, it should be expected. But as a rebel leader, Jonas fails in so many ways, seeing as his plans seem to almost never work and even when they do they result in a great loss of life. I understand his rage against losing his brother, but in his quest for revenge, he basically left his family behind and almost single handedly caused the Auranian battle in book one.

Felix Gaebras: King's assassin turned rebel. Somehow trained by some of the world's hardest people, yet manages to get in the clutches of Princess Amara and imprisoned. I'm not going to say that Felix's actions earned him his current position, but Felix's actions earned him is current position.

Nicolo (Nic) Cassian: I've loved Nic since book one. His banter with Magnus (whom he needs to make friendship with) alone is great, but his friendship with Cleo is the most pure thing ever and they deserve to be friends forever. He's just so sassy despite losing his sister and he's so strong and independent, I just love it! P.S. Nic, please be okay.

Princess (Empress??) Amara Cortas of Kraeshia: Power hungry. To the very core, power hungry. I hope she gets what she deserves in the long run.


Relationships

Magnus/Cleo (Magneo): Nothing in this world or the next could possibly convince me that they don't 100% belong together. They are passion and love and if they ruled together, they could become the most powerful couple, I'm convinced.

Jonas/Cleo: Dead end romance? Seemed like they had something going on that just kinda died off.

Lucia/Magnus: Started out super gross, but ended out being okay. I don't ship it, but I do want them to make up and be close again. It's the least that Magnus deserves.

Magnus/King Gaius: Super intense. Every scene with them is a show-down and I have to slow down to take in every minute. When Magnus finally stood up to him, I practically cried. Yet Gaius continues to intervene with Magnus's life, as if anything he does could fix their relationship.

Nic/Cleo: Worlds strongest/best friendship

Ashur/Nic: I want them to be happy. Let them be happy *looks hopefully at Morgan Rhodes*

Lysandra/Jonas: I'm actually convinced that they would never have worked out. Jonas was so in love with Cleo and then suddenly he's in love with Lys? SPOILER Right after she died?! I just don't believe it.

SERIES AS A WHOLE

To get across just how much I love this series, keep in mind that in order to properly do this post, I reread all five books and book marked pages I thought were important. And after I finished book five like yesterday, I wanted to start all over again. This series is so beautiful and I can't believe I called it a Game of Thrones wannabe the first time I read book one. I am so happy I decided to keep reading, it really shows that you should never judge a series by the first book. I will actually cry very real tears when I finish the last book, but until then I'll just reread the series until my books fall apart.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir - Review

Maybe 4.5

Great way to start off the year! Beginning was a little slow, but amazing once it picked up!
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Okay, after further reflection, I decided I should go a little more in depth about the first book I read for 2017.

I absolutely, positively, with out a single doubt in my mind, hated Helene with a burning passion to the point where I can't even explain why without it sounding fake. She tries...way to hard to be tough. And I get it, she is, and in a world full of boys that aren't necessarily trained with boundaries and respect for women, she is forced into taking on a tougher persona even more than she would have. Yet, from the minute we met her I just knew she was a bad seed. And the way she interacted with Elias was just not okay with me and my disinterest in her and her life just went all the way through the ending and will probably carry into the next book.

Elias. Dear, poor soul. I did get a little tired of his 'taking the high road' personality where he looked down on basically everyone, but I got over it. He and Laia...I love it. I'm not blind though, I see the instalove, I can't ignore it, it's there, but it doesn't change the fact that I love them so much. I'm excited to see them in the next book without Helene there to interfere with my little mental image of the happy ending (Is that even a thing?).

Laia.
Honestly, not that sure what to say about her. Well, if I had one thing to tell her I would say "Your mother doesn't seem that great." Am I the only one that thought that? Based on what I know about her, she seems to have had a god complex, while her father was the real caring, smart one. Laia must take after him a lot, but her courage is probably from her mother's side. To a degree, I would compare Laia's mother to the Commandant. But enough about the mother. I like Laia. She's tough and on more than one occasion I was genuinely scared for her, but dang she can be stupid. For reasons that I won't bring up because I don't want to spoil, but if you read it, you know what I mean.

Overall, it was a great book. Truly. Quite excited to read more.

Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon - Review

Title: Dragonfly in Amber
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Series: Outlander
Book: 2
Format: Hardback
Pages: 745
Rating: 5/5


Goodreads excerpt:
For nearly twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland’s majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones... about a love that transcends the boundaries of time... and about Jamie Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his.
Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire’s spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart... in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising... and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves.

I truly don't know where to begin with this. Usually I start off my reviews with summarizing the book in my own words and then giving my views, but the volume of this book seems near impossible to sum up on my own. Despite the fact that there are over 700 pages to this story, I found that I read this fairly quickly. Going into this, I expected to be reading this at least two weeks, but within the second day of actually reading it, I was well over halfway through. Looking back, the story wasn't even all that interesting. Most of the story was Claire and Jamie going about their normal business with added flare ups of action here and there. Yet, even though I usually detest excess description (which this book is certainly not lacking), I found myself interested in the nitty gritty details that made up this great historical novel. Yes, believe it or not, the history is what ends up drawing you in. The raw material that Gabaldon brings is unlike any other historical fiction novel I've ever read. Not only does it give the harsh reality of hygiene and health as a whole, but also the politics and the economic setbacks that I hadn't expected.

Let's take a moment to look at time travel.

There is no definite way to write time travel. Until someone has gone back in time and actually been able to write out their experiences, which may never happen, then we will be able to understand it. Even then, going back in time may potentially change everything, causing you to never go back in time to begin with. Thus the paradox starts and everyone reading this gets a headache, because this could literally go in a loop forever. My thoughts on time travel. In my mind, time (construct of human intelligence or not) forms to changes. Meaning, what we live in now is how it always has and always will be, because even if people go back in time, that means that they must have done it already. There is no one time and it's all happening at the same time, so in reality, no one can change time, because time is as time does. With that being said, I love how time travel is incorporated. I admire any author that even dares to touch time travel simply because it's so complicated and uncertain. Claire keeps thinking time and time again that her movements will effect how her life was back in the 1940s, but time is funny and she had already made all those moves before she was even born. It's so completely fascinating that I really don't know if I can get my views on this across without completely confusing people. Now, with my little rant out of the way, I agree 100% with Gabaldon's view of time travel. Love it.

As for everything else, I just love Claire and Jamie's relationship, but dangit they make me so mad sometimes. They're so hot and cold that it drives me insane, but they're so intense that you can't help but love every second of it. I really feel for Claire in this book, she deserves her happy life with Jamie and reality keeps throwing obstacles in the way. Overall, this was a incredible second installment to the Outlander series and I'm so excited to see where it goes in books to come.

Nil by Lynne Matson - Review

Title: Nil
Author: Lynne Matson
Series: Nil
Book: 1
Copy: Hardback
Pages: 374
Rating: 5/5

This book just tore out my heart and threw it on the ground like it was nothing. Nil is an amazing, unique story about love, heartbreak, survival, and friendship.
Charley's normal life is thrown out of balance when wakes up naked on an island. Her first thought is that she doesn't even know if she's on Earth let alone if there's anyone else with her. Twelve days of barely scraping by on what little things she could gather, Charley runs into Thad. Thad and Charley are instantly captivated by one another, but neither one knows it. With Thad deemed as Charley's island guide, they have plenty of time to get to know each other. Turns out, people (and warm blooded animals) can appear on Nil any day as long as it's noon. Being on an island with mostly nice, hardworking people doesn't seem entirely terrible. But there's a catch. Each person only gets 365 days to get off the island or they die. With Thad's clock ticking, Charley realizes that she doesn't have as much time as she thought. Will she be able to save both of them? Or will one of them die trying to save the other?
I never stood a chance against this book. With it's stupid beautiful idea and great characters, I was doomed to love it from the start. Don't get me started on Thad and Charley. They are amazing and beautiful and oh so very frustrating. Even if I think their liking for one another was a little sudden, I'll let it slide for how well it was portrayed. They wasted too much time thinking about their feelings and didn't act! If I'm on a deserted island with the guy of my dreams, I will not just stand by and think! Especially if the time is limited!
Li, Natalie, and Rives were my three favourite minor characters and I loved each one for a different reason. And each one of them made me sad for a different reason. I don't want to give too much away because this truly is a great book and I know I say this with a lot of books, but the ending is quite spectacular. All in all, it's a great kick ass story that lovers of the TV show Lost and The Maze Runner would probably go crazy over.
The second book is called Nil Unlocked and the last book Nil on Fire comes out May 31, 2016