The Reader Bee: Fiction

Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

My Thoughts: Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34513785-sky-without-stars

A thief. An officer. A guardian.

Three strangers, one shared destiny . . .

When the Last Days came, the planet of Laterre promised hope. A new life for a wealthy French family and their descendants. But five hundred years later, it’s now a place where an extravagant elite class reigns supreme; where the clouds hide the stars and the poor starve in the streets; where a rebel group, long thought dead, is resurfacing.

Whispers of revolution have begun—a revolution that hinges on three unlikely heroes…

Chatine is a street-savvy thief who will do anything to escape the brutal Regime, including spy on Marcellus, the grandson of the most powerful man on the planet.

Marcellus is an officer—and the son of a renowned traitor. In training to take command of the military, Marcellus begins to doubt the government he’s vowed to serve when his father dies and leaves behind a cryptic message that only one person can read: a girl named Alouette.

Alouette is living in an underground refuge, where she guards and protects the last surviving library on the planet. But a shocking murder will bring Alouette to the surface for the first time in twelve years…and plunge Laterre into chaos.

All three have a role to play in a dangerous game of revolution—and together they will shape the future of a planet.

Power, romance, and destiny collide in this sweeping reimagining of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece, Les Misérables. (Goodreads)

I was very much intrigued by Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell, partially because of the interesting cover, and partially because it was co-written by Jessica Brody. I’ve read a few books that I enjoyed by Jessica so far, so of course I wanted to check out this new book by her. Sky Without Stars was definitely an interesting read.

Let me start by saying that Sky Without Stars is a retelling of Les Misérables, a story which I know absolutely nothing about. (I have not read the book, nor watched the movies, or anything else. I know next to nothing about the story, expect that Anne Hathaway was in the movie.) That being said, I was still pretty excited to start the story, AND as I read it, I found myself getting more and more curious about the original, and how this retelling compared. (I doubt that I will read the original anytime soon, but we’ll see…).

So even though I didn’t know anything about the original story, I still thought this retelling was very interesting. I especially enjoyed the sci-fi aspect to the storyline. I’ve just recently started reading more and more sci-fi, and I always enjoy an author’s take on the genre. The world-building was very interesting, as were the characters in the story. (Of course I had to stop reading the story multiple times to look up who was who, and though the characters have different (yet similar) names to the original cast, I still managed to figure out who was who.) The book ends with a pretty big cliffhanger, and I’m pretty curious to know what’s going to happen next.

Overall; Sky Without Stars was a really interesting read. It did take me a while to get through the book, as it was pretty massive, but I did enjoy the story, and I’m curious to see what will happen next. (I assume this will be a series, but I do not know if it will be a duology or a trilogy.) Fans of Les Misérables will probably appreciate the retelling parts more than I could, having not read the original. I hope you all enjoy the book if you decide to read it!

Friday, January 26, 2018

My Thoughts: The Spring Girls by Anna Todd

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35297512-the-spring-girls

The Spring Girls
by Anna Todd
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Publication Date: January 2nd 2018
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pages: 416
ISBN: 9781501130717
Genre: Fiction | Contemporary
Source: Edelweiss Review Copy

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Four sisters desperately seeking the blueprints to life—the modern-day retelling of Louise May Alcott’s Little Women like only Anna Todd (After, Imagines) could do.

The Spring Girls—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—are a force of nature on the New Orleans military base where they live. As different as they are, with their father on tour in Iraq and their mother hiding something, their fears are very much the same. Struggling to build lives they can be proud of and that will lift them out of their humble station in life, one year will determine all that their futures can become.

The oldest, Meg, will be an officer’s wife and enter military society like so many of the women she admires. If her passion—and her reputation—don’t derail her.

Beth, the workhorse of the family, is afraid to leave the house, is afraid she’ll never figure out who she really is.

Jo just wants out. Wishing she could skip to graduation, she dreams of a life in New York City and a career in journalism where she can impact the world. Nothing can stop her—not even love.

And Amy, the youngest, is watching all her sisters, learning from how they handle themselves. For better or worse.

With plenty of sass, romance, and drama, The Spring Girls revisits Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women, and brings its themes of love, war, class, adolescence, and family into the language of the twenty-first century. (Goodreads)

My Thoughts...
The Spring Girls is the first book that I've ever read by Anna Todd, even though I've had quite a few of her older books on my TBR for a while now. I must admit that I'm a little bit intimidated by how many books are in her After series, so I always end up putting off starting it, but when I saw that The Spring Girls was a standalone novel, I was curious to give it a shot. It was an interesting read!

Ok, I should probably start this by saying that The Spring Girls is a modern-retelling of Little Women. I have not had the pleasure of reading Little Women before, and I've not seen and movie/tv adaptations for it either, so I absolutely cannot compare this story to that one in any way. (Actually, the only things I know about the original Little Women story are the spoilers mentioned on Friends. *grin*). That being said, other than knowing some of the names of the original characters, I basically went into this book completely blind, and not knowing at all what to expect.

One thing that I really liked most about the books was the characters. There were so many Spring girls: Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, and, of course, Meredith, the mom. I absolutely LOVE stories that have big families. The story is told from the perspective of three of the four sisters; Jo, Meg, and Beth. I enjoyed the different viewpoints, as each sister was so different from each other in their own way. They have this really awesome bond that I always hear that some sisters have, but have never actually seen in real life. They don't always get along, but that bond is still there, and so strong. All of the characters were interesting, but I found myself relating a LOT to Beth; especially with the anxiety issues. (I totally get it.) She's totally my favorite sister.

The storyline for the book was fluffy and entertaining, for the most part. I do feel at times that it was a little ramble-y at times, especially when describing things the simplest of things. There was a lot of extra detail that I felt really didn't need to be included, and I found myself skimming over most of these parts. (Was that just me?) Otherwise, I enjoyed the story, and I now definitely want to check out the original story as well.

Overall; I thought The Spring Girls was an interesting read, and it definitely made me want to check out the original Little Women for sure. I'm really curious to know what I will think of the story once I have read the original, and I'm curious to see what others thought of the books as well. I'm also curious to pick up the After series now as well. :)

Monday, December 11, 2017

My Thoughts: Roomies by Christina Lauren

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466910-roomies

Marriages of convenience are so…inconvenient.

Rescued by Calvin McLoughlin from a would-be subway attacker, Holland Bakker pays the brilliant musician back by pulling some of her errand-girl strings and getting him an audition with a big-time musical director. When the tryout goes better than even Holland could have imagined, Calvin is set for a great entry into Broadway—until he admits his student visa has expired and he’s in the country illegally.

Holland impulsively offers to wed the Irishman to keep him in New York, her growing infatuation a secret only to him. As their relationship evolves from awkward roommates to besotted lovers, Calvin becomes the darling of Broadway. In the middle of the theatrics and the acting-not-acting, what will it take for Holland and Calvin to realise that they both stopped pretending a long time ago? (Goodreads)

My Thoughts...
I was really excited to finally get started reading Roomies by Christina Lauren, as the story sounded really cute, it’s been way too long since I’ve read a book by these ladies. Their books are always fun to read, and Roomies was no exception! It was a quick, fun read that left me wanting more, and now I totally want to read more books like this as soon as I possibly can.

Do you ever just want to read a book that’s super fluffy and a really quick read? That’s exactly what you get with Roomies. Seriously, this book was all kinds of adorable; a marriage of convenience, a hunky Irishman, and a lady figuring out exactly where she belongs in the world. The characters in this book are so much fun. I love Holland and her quirky nature, as well as her awesome family, or her brother and uncles, at least, who are really the only ones we get to meet, but who were awesome regardless. And then there’s Calvin, the Irish hunk who was more than a little swoon-worthy throughout the story. Though I did question a few times throughout the story, he won me over by the end, and I enjoyed watching his relationship with Holland blossom as the story went along.

As I mentioned above, the storyline for this book was really fun and fluffy, which was apparently just what I needed at the moment. I don’t read contemporary romances like this nearly enough anymore, and I have no idea why because I really love them. I need to make time to read them more often, which I plan to do as soon as I possibly can!

Overall; I really, really enjoyed reading Roomies, and, as I mentioned above, it’s been WAY too long since I’ve read a book by Christina Lauren. These ladies write some pretty fun stories, and I’m super behind on their books, which is something that I need to work on ASAP, and I’m thinking I need to re-read the books I have already read by them again soon as well! *grin*!