The Star-Touched Queen (ARC Review)

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy/Mythology
Page Length: 352 pages
Format: ARC (won in a giveaway!)
Publication Date: April 26, 2016
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

I'd like to thank Roshani Chokshi for hosting the giveaway. Although she provided me with a copy of her book, it in no way whatsoever affected my thoughts/opinions about this book. These opinions are completely my own.

About The Star-Touched Queen (via Goodreads):

Cursed with a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, sixteen-year-old Maya has only earned the scorn and fear of her father's kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her world is upheaved when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. But when her wedding takes a fatal turn, Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Yet neither roles are what she expected. As Akaran's queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar's wife, she finds friendship and warmth.

But Akaran has its own secrets - thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Beneath Akaran's magic, Maya begins to suspect her life is in danger. When she ignores Amar's plea for patience, her discoveries put more than new love at risk - it threatens the balance of all realms, human and Otherworldly.

Now, Maya must confront a secret that spans reincarnated lives and fight her way through the dangerous underbelly of the Otherworld if she wants to protect the people she loves.

The Star-Touched Queen is a lush, beautifully written and vividly imagined fantasy inspired by Indian mythology.

I ADORED THIS BOOK. Actually, I more than adored it. THIS BOOK GAVE ME PURE UNADULTERATED HAPPINESS. Okay, maybe not pure happiness because I was shrieking in despair for some of the book, but it was so breathtakingly beautiful I didn't even care that my heart was fracturing into a billion pieces. I ached for the characters and their broken hearts and battered souls, and sang in happiness when things fell into place, even if it was only for a fleeting moment.

The Star-Touched Queen is the most captivating and exquisite book I have ever read in my entire existence. Roshani Chokshi's words cast a spell on me, and every detail was so vivid and poetic. Her words were true magic.

The plot was heavily entwined with Maya's relationship with Amar, but it wasn't overwhelmingly so. Their romance scorched the pages and left me longing for more. It was heartbreaking but beautiful, and I loved every second of it. However, in the end, the story was also about Maya's renewal and her quest to find herself after losing her sense of identity.  Maya's transformation throughout the course of the novel was like watching a butterfly break out of its cocoon and test its wings for the first time—it was a truly unique and joyous experience.

Before reading The Star-Touched Queen, I knew next to nothing about Indian mythology, but Chokshi's writing opened my eyes to the beauty of Indian culture and their myths and legends, and I was completely enraptured by the lore. I have always been a fan of mythology, so even though the book was absolutely stunning on its own, learning about a completely foreign culture and mythology in the process was an added bonus.

Reading The Star-Touched Queen was like taking a breath of fresh air. I needed to keep reading like my life depended on it. It was that good. In fact, I loved The Star-Touched Queen so much that I would give it every star in the universe if I could. The Star-Touched Queen was an absolute masterpiece, and I could not have asked for anything more.

Rating: 5 stars

Nora & Kettle (Book Blitz + Giveaway!)

Nora & Kettle
Lauren Nicolle Taylor
Published by: Clean Teen Publishing
Publication date: February 29th 2016
Genres: Historical, Young Adult

What if Peter Pan was a homeless kid just trying to survive, and Wendy flew away for a really good reason?
Seventeen-year-old Kettle has had his share of adversity. As an orphaned Japanese American struggling to make a life in the aftermath of an event in history not often referred to—the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the removal of children from orphanages for having “one drop of Japanese blood in them”—things are finally looking up. He has his hideout in an abandoned subway tunnel, a job, and his gang of Lost Boys.
Desperate to run away, the world outside her oppressive brownstone calls to naïve, eighteen-year-old Nora—the privileged daughter of a controlling and violent civil rights lawyer who is building a compensation case for the interned Japanese Americans. But she is trapped, enduring abuse to protect her younger sister Frankie and wishing on the stars every night for things to change.
For months, they’ve lived side by side, their paths crossing yet never meeting. But when Nora is nearly killed and her sister taken away, their worlds collide as Kettle, grief stricken at the loss of a friend, angrily pulls Nora from her window.
In her honeyed eyes, Kettle sees sadness and suffering. In his, Nora sees the chance to take to the window and fly away.
Set in 1953, NORA AND KETTLE explores the collision of two teenagers facing extraordinary hardship. Their meeting is inevitable, devastating, and ultimately healing. Their stories, a collection of events, are each on their own harmless. But together, one after the other, they change the world.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / iBooks

EXCERPT:

I snort, push my sleeves up, and lean back on my forearms. She watches me, her eyes on my bare skin, and I wonder what she’s thinking. “Dances. Really? What’s to miss?” My experience with dances was one forced event in the camps where we watched the grownups awkwardly shift in lines to scratchy music. It didn’t look very enjoyable.

She releases the button she’s been playing with and smirks. “Says someone who’s clearly never been to one.”

“How do you know that?” I say, raising an eyebrow and touching my chest, mock offended.

She laughs. It’s starlight in a jar. I blink slowly. “Oh, I can tell just by looking at you, the way you move. You,” she says, pointing at me accusingly. “Can’t dance.”

The candlelight twinkles like it’s chuckling at me. “I can dance,” I say, not sure why I’m lying to defend myself. I’ve never danced in my life.

She stands up and beckons me with her finger, and I think there’s something wrong with my heart. It’s hurting… but the pain feels good.

She looks like a pirate’s cabin boy, shirt billowing around her small waist, ill-fitting pants rolled over at her hips to stop them from falling down. She points her bare foot at me. “Prove it!”

Shit!

I cough and stand nervously. I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I put them behind my back. She giggles. Touches me. Runs her fingers lightly down my arms until she finds my hands. She grasps my wrists and I gulp as she places one on the small dip between her hips and her ribs, extending the other out like the bow of a boat. Her hand in mine.

I follow her small steps and we wind in circles, avoiding the clumps of debris, painting patterns in the dust.

I stare at my socks and her narrow bare feet, listening to the swish of them across the dirt. “You know, this is pretty weird without music,” I mutter, looking up for a moment and suddenly losing my balance.

She exhales and brings us back to equilibrium. She starts humming softly. It’s a song I’ve heard before, but I pretend it’s the first time. Her voice is sweet, cracked and croaky, but in tune as she gazes at the ground and leads us up and down the back of the tunnel.

This moment is killing me. I don’t want it, but I do. Because I know it won’t be enough and it’s all I’ll get.

The end of the song is coming. It rises and rises and then softly peters out. We look at each other, understanding that something is changing between us, and we have to decide whether to let it. Please, let it.

She sings the last few bars. “And if you sing this melody, you’ll be pretending just like me. The world is mine. It can be yours, my friend. So why don’t you pretend?”

Her voice is like the dust of a comet’s tail. Full of a thousand things I don’t understand but want to.
She stops and starts to step away. She’s so fragile. Not on the outside. On the outside, her body is strong, tougher than it should have to be. It’s inside that’s very breakable. I’m scared to touch her, but I don’t want to avoid touching her because of what she’s been through. That seems worse.

So I do it, because I want to and I don’t think she doesn’t want me to. Her breath catches as I pull her closer. I just want to press my cheek to hers, feel her skin against mine. There is no music, just the rhythm of two barely functioning hearts trying to reach each other through miles of scar tissue.

She presses her ear to my chest and listens, then she pulls back to meet my eyes, her expression a mixture of confusion and comfort. She breathes out, her lips not wanting to close but not wanting to speak. She settles on a nervous smile and puts her arms around my neck. I inhale and look up at the ceiling, counting the stars I know are up there somewhere, and then rest my cheek in her hair.

I don’t know how she is here. I don’t know when she’ll disappear.

We sway back and forth, and it feels like we might break. That we will break if we step apart from each other.

I can’t let her go.

I think I love dancing.

Author Bio: Lauren Nicolle Taylor lives in the lush Adelaide Hills. The daughter of a Malaysian nuclear physicist and an Australian scientist, she was expected to follow a science career path, attending Adelaide University and completing a Health Science degree with Honours in obstetrics and gynaecology.

She then worked in health research for a short time before having her first child. Due to their extensive health issues, Lauren spent her twenties as a full-time mother/carer to her three children. When her family life settled down, she turned to writing.

She is a 2014 Kindle Book Awards Semi-finalist and a USA Best Book Awards Finalist. 

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

GIVEAWAY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hosted by:

Waiting on Wednesday (33)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating.

The First Time She Drowned by Kerry Kletter
Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary
Page Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Philomel Books

Publication Date: March 15, 2016

About The First Time She Drowned (via Goodreads):

The beautiful struggle of a girl desperate for the one relationship that has caused her the most painCassie O'Malley has spent the past two and a half years in a mental institution—dumped there by her mother, against her will. Now, at 18, Cassie emancipates herself, determined to start over. She attends college, forms new friendships, and even attempts to start fresh with her mother. But before long, their unhealthy relationship threatens to pull Cassie under once again. As Cassie struggles to reclaim her life, childhood memories persist and confuse, and Cassie must consider whose version of history is real, and more important, whose life she must save.

A bold, literary story about the fragile complexities of mothers and daughters and learning to love oneself, The First Time She Drowned reminds us that we must dive deep into our pasts if we are ever to move forward.

Gena/Finn (ARC Review)

Gena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson

Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary

Page Length: 345 pages

Format: ARC received from a friend

Publication Date: April 5, 2016

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Although I received a free copy of this book, my opinion of it is completely my own.

About Gena/Finn (via Goodreads):

The story follows the unlikely friendship of two young women forged via fan fiction and message boards, and is told entirely in texts, chats, and blog posts.

Gena (short for Genevieve) and Finn (short for Stephanie) have little in common. Book-smart Gena is preparing to leave her posh boarding school for college; down-to-earth Finn is a twenty-something struggling to make ends meet in the big city. Gena’s romantic life is a series of reluctant one-night-stands; Finn is making a go of it with long-term boyfriend Charlie. But they share a passion for Up Below, a buddy cop TV show with a cult fan following. Gena is a darling of the fangirl scene, keeping a popular blog and writing fan fiction. Finn’s online life is a secret, even from Charlie. The pair spark an unlikely online friendship that deepens quickly (so quickly it scares them both), and as their individual “real” lives begin to fall apart, they increasingly seek shelter online, and with each other.

Gena/Finn was a wonderfully raw, emotional, and relatable book. I have to admit that I was expecting a more light-hearted read, despite the struggles the characters seemed to face, but I was completely wrong. At the beginning, I was cracking up a lot at the wit and hilarious interactions between the girls in the online community, but later the book takes a more serious turn. I don't want to give anything away, but I was definitely heartbroken by the end, and I was hardcore crying like a baby. There were just SO MANY FEELS.

I know people seem to complain that "relatable" is not the best word to describe things, least of all books, but the book seriously was relatable. The characters were fangirls, and as a blogger and fangirl myself, it was great being able to connect with the characters and form a mutual interest so early on in the story. Even though I've never seen the fictional TV show (Up Below) that the characters rave about, I still felt myself cheering, fangirling, and flailing so hard—as fangirls do—along with Gena and Finn.

In addition to connecting with the characters in the fangirling sense, the friendships they formed and the obstacles they overcame paralleled some of my experiences and really struck a chord with me. Although I may not have lived through some of the horrors Gena and Finn go through, I experienced what they were feeling whole-heartedly while reading, and it was glorious and heart-wrenching all at once. I don't even know how to explain it. So few books manage to pull at my heartstrings, yet this one managed to do exactly that.

Even though I have read a similarly formatted book before, I was still a bit wary about reading a book told through different forms of media (emails, texts, letters, journal entries, fanfictions, message boards, etc.) Although I would not say it was executed perfectly, the flow of the story was still very well done and I could feel just as many emotions (if not more) reading in this book style as reading in the "normal" prose style. There was never a dull moment in the book, and I honestly could not put the book down—I finished it in 4 hours because it was so addicting! All in all, I was satisfied by the end and recognize its significance to the plot, but at the same time it was kind of abrupt and confused me at first. (I had to reread it a few times to realize why it ended the way it did.)

Ultimately, Gena/Finn really surprised me. It was both a fun and emotional read, and although there were a few minor issues, it was overall a lovely book.

Rating: 3.25 stars

February Wrap-Up

February went by so fast. Granted, it's the shortest month of the year, but still! We're already 1/6 of the way through 2016. It's crazy! Anyway, I did not read a ton this month, but I got way too many books to count (I used some holiday gift cards, but I still feel a tiny bit guilty).

BOOKS I BOUGHT THIS MONTH:

1. Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman
2. Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin
3. The Siren by Kiera Cass
4. The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry
5. Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
6. The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
7. A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab

GIFTED/WON THIS MONTH:

1. Gena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson (received from a friend)
2. Places No One Knows by Brenna Yavanoff (received from a friend)
3. The Way Back to You by Michelle Andreani and Mindi Scott (received from a friend)
4. How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather (received from a friend)
5. The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi (won in a giveaway)
6. The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye (won in a giveaway)

BOOKS I READ THIS MONTH:

1. Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman (check out my review here!)
2. Gena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson (review going up tomorrow!)
3. The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi (review going up next week!)

CURRENTLY READING:

1. Sword and Verse by Kathy MacMillan - I might DNF this one though... I haven't decided yet.
2. The Island by S. Usher Evans
3. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

DISCUSSION POST(S) THIS MONTH:

1. "Are Epilogues Necessary?" and the "Cookie-Cutter Epilogue"

AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE THIS MONTH:

1. Alexa @ Alexa Loves Books, Cee @ The Novel Hermit, Hazel @ Stay Bookish, and Mel @ The Daily Prophecy hosted the 2016 Love-A-Thon
2. Kit Cat @ Let the Pages Reign talked about why an author is 50% of the book
3. Aila @ One Way or An Author shared 5 popular character descriptions in YA literature
4. Alex @ Fiery Reads discussed whether you can love a book but hate the ending
5. Mishma @ Chasing Faerytales shared insecurities of book bloggers

Disney Princess Tag

I was tagged by Deanna and Gabi @Booksablog/Reading In the Rain to do the Disney Princess Tag back in September, and I'm finally doing it. Better late than never, right? I am super excited to do this tag, since I LOVE Disney, so let's begin, shall we?

Snow White - name your favorite classic

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I know it's not as popular or well-known as most "classics", but I remember absolutely loving it, and it being on my summer reading list one year. So maybe it's not canonically a classic, but it's still kind of a classic...? I don't really know. Also, I don't remember much about it at all, except that I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Classic runner-ups (that are more typically viewed as classics) are definitely Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Cinderella - name a book that kept you reading well past your bedtime

For this one, I'll definitely have to say Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff! I'm sure there have been others, but I was absolutely obsessed with Illuminae, and with the amazingly unique formatting, it was even easier to tell myself it was okay to read just one more page.

Aurora - name your favorite classic romance

Favorite romance... There are quite a few I adore, but the one that stands out most to me is between Anne and Teach from Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman!

Ariel - name a book that's about making sacrifices and fighting for your dreams

The Wrath and the Dawn is definitely about making sacrifices and fighting for what you believe in! I mean, Shazi did go in to wed Khalid in order to avenge her friend's death... Things did end up changing, but they kept fighting and making sacrifices, even though their dreams changed.

Belle - name a book with a smart and independent female character

Okay, so maybe she is a bit impulsive at times, but Adelina from The Young Elites is definitely smart and independent! She hasn't necessarily made the best decisions, but she is intelligent and independent, even though her emotions may get the best of her a lot of the time.

Jasmine - name a book with a character who challenged the social issues

Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Pocahontas - name a book whose ending was a roller-coaster of emotions

There are sooooooo many of these. Blackhearts (Nicole Castroman), Strange and Ever After (Susan Dennard), Reign of Shadows (Sophie Jordan)... TOO MANY BOOKS.

Mulan - name a book with a kick-ass female character

Pretty much any female character from Sarah J. Maas' books, so Celaena, Nehemia, Manon (although I still haven't finished reading Heir of Fire, so that might be a problem), Feyre, etc.

Rapunzel - name a book that features an artist

I haven't read it yet, but apparently the characters in I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson are artists? I'm hoping to read the book soon since I have had it on my shelf for over a year now, but I just haven't had the opportunity to pick it up yet.

Merida - name a book that features a mother-daughter relationship

It's definitely a strained relationship, but there is at least a mother figure in the Something Strange and Deadly trilogy by Susan Dennard. Mother figures are extremely uncommon in Young Adult fiction, or so it seems, for whatever reason. I've never really understood that.

Anna and Elsa - name a book that features a great relationship between siblings

I'm actually struggling to come up with an answer, so I'll just go with Jane and Lizzie's relationship in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Waiting on Wednesday (32)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating.

The Last Boy and Girl in the World by Siobhan Vivian
Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary
Page Length: 432 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: April 26, 2016

About The Last Boy and Girl in the World (via Goodreads):

From the critically acclaimed author of The List comes a stunning new novel about a girl who must say goodbye to everything she knows after a storm wreaks havoc on her hometown.

What if your town was sliding underwater and everyone was ordered to pack up and leave? How would you and your friends spend your last days together?

While the adults plan for the future, box up their possessions, and find new places to live, Keeley Hewitt and her friends decide to go out with a bang. There are parties in abandoned houses. Canoe races down Main Street. The goal is to make the most of every minute they still have together.

And for Keeley, that means taking one last shot at the boy she’s loved forever.

There’s a weird sort of bravery that comes from knowing there’s nothing left to lose. You might do things you normally wouldn’t. Or say things you shouldn’t. The reward almost always outweighs the risk.

Almost.

It’s the end of Aberdeen, but the beginning of Keeley’s first love story. It just might not turn out the way she thought. Because it’s not always clear what’s worth fighting for and what you should let become a memory.


A transcendent love story, as profoundly moving as it is fun. This is Siobhan Vivian's finest hour.
--Stephen Chbosky, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower