Book Review: The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan

My Rating: 4.5/5

Gabry lives a quiet life, secure in her town next to the sea and behind the Barrier. She's content to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. Home is all she's ever known and, and all she needs for happiness.
But life after the Return is never safe and there are threats even the Barrier can't hold back.
Gabry's mother thought she left her secrets behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, but, like the dead in their world, secrets don't stay buried. And now, Gabry's world is crumbling.
One night beyond the Barrier . . .
One boy Gabry's known forever and one veiled in mystery . . .
One reckless moment, and half of Gabry's generation is dead, the other half imprisoned.
Now Gabry knows only one thing: if she has any hope of a future, she must face the forest of her mother's past.

I was extremely excited to read this after finishing The Forest of Hands and Teeth (see my review here). Carrie Ryan is a great author and wrote another beautiful book with this one. It's hard to compare books, but I liked this one even better than the first one. Gabry was just as interesting of a character as Mary, trying to figure out her identity, along with her mother's (her mother is Mary, the main character of the first book).

Everything I didn't like about Hands and Teeth was redeemed here. Elias was a breath of fresh air. It's just my opinion, but i really liked him. Unlike other male characters from Hands and Teeth or this book, he was mysterious and had secrets. The tension and mystery between him and Gabry was there from the very beginning to the very end. I also enjoyed the plot twists in this book. I never would've guessed some of the things that get revealed, but it all makes sense. Catcher, another new character, who forms a love triangle with Gabry and Elias, also added a lot to the book. I really like him, but not for Gabry.

The only thing I didn't like about this book was the end started to get really slow for me- right when there was a lot of action, approximately the last 1/4 of the book, for some reason it was hard to get through. Regardless, it was still an awesome book and anyone who loves YA fiction or paranormal romance should definitly read this series!

+ an extra .5 :)

Blog Hop!

It's Friday again, so time for the Blog Hop! It's hosted by Crazy-For-Books.

Welcome to Book Infinity! If this is your first time, please comment! My name is Ava, reading is pretty much my life right now.

This week's question:

Tell us about some of your favorite authors and why they are your favorites!

My answer:

There's so many, so I'll just name a few.
-Suzanne Collins, author of Hunger Games and Gregor the Overlander, great series!
-JK Rowling, author of Harry Potter series of course
-Libba Bray, author of A Great and Terrible Beauty trilogy.

I love these authors because they know how to create really good characters and situations that capture reader's attention. They know how to tell a story and build on it and provide great twists! I hope to read more from these authors in the future.

Thanks for stopping by!

Book Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

My Rating: 4/5
In Mary's world, there are simple truths.
The Sisterhood always knows best.
The Guardians will protect and serve.
The Unconsecrated will never relent.
And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village. The fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth.
But slowly, Mary's truths are failing her. She's learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power. And, when the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness.
Now she must choose between her village and her future, between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded by so much death?

I want to start by saying that I really, really, really enjoyed reading this book! It completely captured my attention and provided a very interesting storyline that made me want to keep reading. Now, having said that, there were also a lot of things I didn't like as much about this book. But I still really enjoyed it, so it would be hard for me to give it a bad rating.

The main character, Mary, lives in a world that's very bounded by tradition and rules, similar to a lot of other books I've read. Their village is surrounded by Unconcentrated, which are pretty much zombies- people become Infected, they die, and they come back as Unconcentrated, whose only goal is to infect others.

The setting- Mary's village- was very mysterious and you could tell there were a lot of secrets just waiting to be discovered. Mary was a very interesting round character which I really liked, but sometimes she just got on my nerves. She was always longing for something better, a hope. I think, though, she never really found that. She fell in love with a fellow village member Travis, but I don't think their relationship was well developed, and it seemed very unoriginal, and it didn't even seem to fit with Mary's never-satisfied personality (but I think the author did a good job of handling that issue- you'll know what I mean if you've read the book). I never could figure out why she liked him more than his older brother who actually liked her back, but the love triangle/square was really good. The thing I disliked the most about this book was that there really wasn't any twists or surprises. The ending was actually fairly predictable once you were pretty far into it, with one minor twist that I was really grateful for. I thought there was so much potential for mystery in the whole story of the village, but it didn't really happen.

But I still really enjoyed reading this book! And I'm really excited to read to sequel, because I think it might wrap up some of the story of what happened to the village and Mary, and maybe provide some more suspense along the way.

I would definitly recommend this book to anyone! It's very interesting and original.

2010 Debut Author Challenge!

The 2010 Debut Author Challenge, which is being hosted by The Story Siren, challenges you to read at least 12 books by new authors in 2010.

I know it's already halfway through 2010, but I want to take part in the Debut Author Challenge! So far I'm planning on reading 15 books. I'm looking forward to starting this!

Other- Karen Kincy
The Iron King- Julie Kagawa
The Body Finder- Kimberly Derting
Claire de Lune- Christine Johnson
13 to Life- Shannon Delany
Nevermore- Kelly Creagh
Before I Fall- Lauren Oliver
All Unquiet Things- Anna Jarzab
Spin- Catherine McKenzie
Firespell- Chloe Neill
The Line- Teri Hall
The Secret Year- Jennifer Hubbard
A Little Wanting Song- Cath Crowley
The Dark Divine- Bree Despain
The Clockwork Three- Matthew Kirby


Does this look like a good list?
I hope so! :)

Book Blogger Hop

It's Friday, and I'm joining this :)

It's hosted by Crazy-For-Books.

This week's question:

Tell us your NAME and WHY YOU STARTED BLOGGING

Okay, well, my name is Ava, and I started blogging because I always liked reading books then hearing what others thought of them, so I went online and found a blog that had reviewed a ton of my favorite books, and found they were linked to a ton of other blogs, and I realized there was this whole world of book blogs out there! I started following a couple of them, and then decided I should make one of my own! I just started but I love it!

Book Review: This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

My Rating: 3.5/5

It's been a year since a meteor collided with the moon, catastrophically altering the earth's climate. For Miranda Evans, life as she knew it no longer exists. Her friends and neighbors are dead, the landscape is frozen, and food is increasingly scarce. The struggle to survive intensifies when Miranda's father and stepmother arrive with a baby and three strangers in tow. One of the newcomes is Alex Morales, and as Miranda's complicated feelings towards him turn to love, his plans for the future thwart their relationship. Then a devastating tornado hits the town of Howell, and Miranda makes a decision that will change their lives forever.

This book is the last in the Life As We Knew It trilogy. I read the first two and I wasn't extremely impressed, but I decided to go ahead and read the third one anyway. This one was definitly my favorite of the series. It connected the two protagonists of the first two books and combined their stories. I liked how, in this book, you could really feel the tension between a lot of the characters. I also liked since it was Miranda's diary, her thoughts were really realistic and human and a lot of the times funny. This was something I really missed with the second book, The Dead and The Gone, which was centered around Alex. The other books seemed extremely repetitive, and this one slipped into that a little bit, but generally it was pretty new and interesting. Alex got really annoying a few times, but it was still realistic. There was suspense, and at the end it almost gave me shivers. The thing I didn't like the most about this book was the ending. I hope there's a fourth book that will give it more conclusion. It was also really short!

Overall, I would recommend this book, but you have to read the first two to really appreciate it, and those books were a little more dull.

*content warning: none that I remember

Book Review: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

My Rating: 4/5

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in hsi pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun- but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove the Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

I picked this book up at the library because I'd heard it was good, but I really didn't know what it was about and I was really surprised when I started reading it. In a good way. This book was comical, and some elements were extremely unrealistic (he really knew and dated that many girls named Katherine? how did he manage to have so many girl friends when he proclaims he is far from popular and has one friend?), but by the end of the book that didn't seem to matter much. I still was able to relate to the characters and Colin was really intriguing. It seemed super nerdy at times and I think that's why I liked it. If he wasn't a child prodigy and had his Theorem, it would have been dumb and just like many other books I've ever read. It was unique and a bit nerdy and not afraid to be so. That's why I liked this book. I would definitly recommend it. I haven't read any other books by John Green, but now I really want to. It was a great book that made me think.

The only thing I didn't like about this book was that about 1/2-3/4 of the way through it I started getting tired of the same things over and over- the book wasn't changing much. Katherines were the same, he kept trying the figure out the Theorem, and it was pretty predictable how it would end. Fortunately, it was short, so I got through it quickly with still a lot of good thoughts about the first half.

*content warning: a lot of language, some sexual content

(note: i wanted to add a content warning to my reviews because I don't want to just recommend books with a lot of mature content to any reader, especially younger people who might read it- for example, this is definitly a mature book and i don't think everyone should read it, and i want my readers to know that)