TBR of February

January has been a very productive month! I've read some more than in other months and that's a good thing! Sadly, I didn't read one of my TBR books I wanted to read in January: Bloodlines. So that book also comes in my TBR of the month! Also there's another Book Challenge which you can find: here 

Shadows by Paula Weston
The first book I want to talk about is Shadows by Paula Weston. I've had my eyes on this book for a while because I hope it's about angels. I think we've established it by now: I'm an Angel VS. Demon girl, I can't live without my flying creatures... 

Yet I feel like I already have read most of the good series about Angels and Demons! So I didn't want to start this series until I finished the series by Susan EE (Penryn and the end of days series). One angel-alike series at a time, Erica... 
So Yes, I can finally start this book and I hope it'll be as good as I have imagined and heard of. It has really good scores on Goodreads: a 4 out of 5 stars! 

It's about a girl who has lost her twin brother and tries to get closure but then... there comes a boy she's been dreaming of since that one tragic day, and he doesn't leave her life untouched. For a matter of fact, he turns her whole world, build on what was for her the truth, upside down. He ruins all for her by telling things about her brother and about herself. She doesn't know what to believe while she get's thrown in a whole new world. 

Doesn't that sound exciting? I'm also very curious to the author's writing style because I've never read any book by her. I did hear great things about her so yeah, I can't wait to dive in! 

Also if anybody has series about Angels, please, please leave it in the comments or contact me. I'm in need of more series about flying people that look beautifully unreal! 

GOODREADS

“Most stories are based on something real.” 

Did I Mention I Love You? by Estelle Maskame

Another new author for me is Estelle Maskame. I came across this books while I was, as usual, checking out some books that I maybe wanted to read. And then I saw this, look. at. that. cover! Just look at it! It looks beautiful and so promising! But the plot does look good too...

The main female character goes spend the summer with her father and new family. Which means getting to know her 3 new step-brothers! And that doesn't really goes as planned. One of them has the biggest ego she's ever seen and speaking of an irritated mood... His friends show our female character around while he only tries to avoid her. What's his problem? And how does our female character feel about it? 

These questions hopefully will be answered in this book! I can't wait really, it seems such a feels-book and this cover. God, I just can't wait! I just... NEED! It's also a trilogy so I'm expecting a lot of feels and maybe even an open end. I'm really curious to where this book might lead. 

GOODREADS

"Who the hell is this jackass?"

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins 
A while ago I read the first book in this trilogy, for the first time. So It's really time for me to read the second book in this series! I'm always curious to what similarities I'm going to find but also which differences in comparison with the film!

There isn't really much more to tell about this book because I'm pretty sure, we all know what this is about!  

GOODREADS

“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever.” 

And that ladies and gentleman, is my TBR-list for February! But I'm not so sure if I'll be able to follow this one because there are exciting releases coming this month! Such as THE POWER by Jennifer L. Armentrout and GLASS SWORD by Victoria Aveyard. Those are two books, I'm personally even more excited about because the first ones in these series were both SO, SO good! Are there any releases you guys are excited for?

What happened to goodbye

I saw a cover and I was sold. Immediately. It was just love at first sight (and this phenomenon of seeing a book with a very nice cover, followed by getting that book happens a lot to me.) The book I found is in Dutch though but no worries because it’s an English book: What happened to goodbye by Sarah Dessen.

 Since the divorce of her parents she hasn’t been one person. Living with her father was what McLean wanted because she hated her mother for what she had done. And she doesn’t care if that means she has to move 4 times in 2 years because of her fathers job. For her it only brought opportunities to start all over, with a clean sleeve and a new name. This time the new location is Lakeview, new location? New name. But things didn’t go as McLean had planned and that all because of her neighbor, Dave. She doesn’t know what’s happening to her: she’s being the real McLean, she has a desire to stay in Lakeview instead of moving all the time. She’s longing for a real home. Those feelings only get her confused, this isn’t like her. Not since the divorce but Dave intends to discover the real McLean, to lure her out. Will she let him?

This is how the book cover looks in Dutch

What I love and always have loved about Sarah Dessen’s books is the fact that the girls are always in a bad vibe. They think that they can’t be loved or aren’t supposed to fall in love. And Sarah let’s them follow a path each time which has a light at the end. Then they discover who they really are and what they really feel. Is it love or just friendship who knows with McLean. But I can tell you it only gave me so many pleasant moments in the book and so many cute parts where I literally melted. The end was totally different than I thought it would be, surprising factor? Check. It’s why it left me so stunned and excited at the same time. 
“It was amazing how you could get so far from where you'd planned, and yet find it was exactly were you needed to be.”

Can we just take a few breaths. I just finished this read and I feel so empty, like I have to start all over again. This is what Sarah Dessen does to me every time again. Though I also feel happy. I’m just so excited about this book!

McLean has had a rough time when her parents divorced, in her eyes all because of what her mother had done. She hates her mother and when she had the choice to go live with her dad she took it with both hands. The only thing that might be a negative point is that she has to move a lot because of her fathers job. Well Negative? This character takes these opportunities for granted. I’ve never read a book with such a character as McLean. Changing names and personalities each time she moves? Original? Check. We get to see McLean when she just arrives in a new town. She introduces us to all the other McLeans there were before and walks us through how this all works out. I liked the factor of that, of introducing us to her previous selves as if it’s normal and meanwhile we get a look into her head.

Until Dave comes along. How they meet is special if not very funny. Dave is a genius, handsome, sweet, understanding and can look right through McLean’s appearance. That’s why I love him so much! He doesn’t look just at the outside, he looks deeper and further than all that. He looks at the soul and he falls in love with everything about her. He wants to know the real McLean and intends to find her.

Another very interesting character which I loved was Deb. She’s a shy girl, hasn’t had any friends until McLean arrives and decides to make sure Deb has friends. From that moment we get to see Deb a lot more. You’d think this would be plain character but she’s not. She has so much experience with topics that aren’t even close to each which only makes her a very funny and versatile character and I loved her leading role so much. You saw her grow from shy to someone very open and discrete. 

This book was just as other books by Sarah Dessen, amazing and I surely recommend What happened to goodbye. It might start a little slow but at a point it gets so good and you want to know if Dave will be around and what McLean intends to do, that you keep reading. If you already read what happened to goodbye, I’m sure you’ll enjoy Along For The Ride by her too. So make sure to check both of them out! 

A fun fact that I discovered in this book is that miss Dessen makes a link to a character from one of her other books which I found a very nice touch.

“It was amazing how you could get so far from where you'd planned, and yet find it was exactly were you needed to be.”

Half-blood

Fans of Jennifer L Armentrout, brace yourselves for another good book. What am I saying? Excellent beginning to a series, those are the words I need to use to introduce you to Half-blood by, as I already said: Jennifer L Armentrout. A friend of mine and also a bibliophile, Fien recommended this book to me. Thanks for that, Fien! She also has a bookblog which you can find here:My bookish rambles

The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi pure bloods have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals--well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures. Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden. Unfortunately, she's crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.

That’s just what the back of the book says and I’m already “This is so Jennifer!” and all hyped about the story. I like Jennifer’s books, it’s not to hard to read. She writes ‘simple’, in other words my brain doesn’t need to function. I’m from Belgium so English is not my mother tongue so some books just ask my brains to work and translate, with Jennifer L Armentrout’s books it’s not like that. I can enjoy it and I do. 

Back to the book! As explained Alex is a half-blood and the one she’s crushing on Aiden, is a pure. She’s been crushing on him for a long time while living under the protection of the Covenant. Though 3 years ago, Alex’s mother has taken her away from that protection for unknown reasons. And when certain things happen, Alexandra wonders why she ever decided to take her away from that safe place she ones called home, where she ones had dreams.  

3 Years later, Alex is back on the Covenant. Training, starting from the total begin to make sure she can start the academic year with her peers. But guess who her trainer is? Yes! Yes! Yes! The guy she has a crush on, the one she should never fall in love with, a pure. Aiden St. Delphi! Make sure you’re prepared to fall in love all over again with a reincarnation of Daimon Black. But more events start to reveal themselves: problems, forbidden love, people who are supposed to be death and even more! I recommend this book to everyone who loved other books from Jennifer L Armentrout but also to the ones who have never heard of her before. It’s time for all of you to get to know her! 

As always the characters all have their own personalities, nobody is the same even though some might be the same species. With that I mean that it's not because there are two half-bloods that that means they're the same. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses, so do the pures. You fall in love with how they act and how they are. It’s not only a ‘simple’ read, it has everything. Funny moments, romantic ones, frustrating ones, thrilling parts and if the end is near you only hope that the second book is already on your bookshelves. And I really don’t want to spoil anything which is why I’m not really going deeper into certain aspects, I want you to reveal the things. Discover everything there is about Jennifer L Armentrout’s books and most importantly: to fall in love with this series. My friend is two books ahead of me and she’s so thrilled about it, I can only imagine how good the rest will be and I know it’ll be better than I expected. 

If you read the Lux-series, then you sure know what I’m talking about if I say the ending of the series destroyed me. Like I literally felt lost, it was done. Over. Finished and I know this series won’t be any different feeling. But more updates about the following books will come! 

A fact about this book is that it’s apparently really similar to the vampire academy. So if you enjoyed those books, you might want to check it out! 

“People do the damnedest things when they’re in love.” 

How I live now

On most schools, teenagers need to read books for a subject. It’s, of course, the same on my school. I’ll have to read 4 books for Dutch, a book for French and 2 books for English. Now I never really liked the books that we had to read because we never got to choose which one. It’s always from a list and that list is boring and most of the time there isn’t any young adult. I love young adult, I only read young adult but this time for English we got something I really enjoyed reading: “How I love now” by Meg Rosoff.

15-year-old Daisy is sent off to her aunt and cousins in England. She doesn’t want to go simply because she doesn’t feel the need but also because she doesn’t know them. She never met them before and Daisy rather just relaxes by herself. When she arrives, she immediately regrets it. Her little niece just keeps asking her attention but so does one of her cousins: Edmund. There's just something about him but she can't put her finger on it.

Soon her aunt has to leave for business and Daisy is left alone in England with her cousins and her little niece. Daisy starts feeling better around her family, especially because there are no parents around, no adults. Until there’s a bombing in London by an unknown enemy and days later it is confirmed that a war has begun. The teenagers live on edge and try to make the best of it while they’re safe, thinking that the war won’t get to their little village. But soon it all changes when they get taken. Boys go to the war and the women go to a safer place. Edmund and Daisy have fallen fiercely in love only to be ripped apart from each other because of the war.  It’s everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way.

This book! But the bad thing first. The book is divided in two parts. That first part was for me the worst part because there were literally no but really no speech marks. I was sometimes so confused with who said this sentence? Is this something someone says or is this Daisy thinking? It caused a lot of confusion with me. I’ve never had a book like this before which only made it more weird for me. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like what was said or how Daisy thought, I just would’ve enjoyed it more if it did have the speech marks. It would’ve been more structured.

But other than that... Daisy, is such an interesting character! From being really silent and distant in the beginning of the book, she becomes such an adult towards the end. It’s fascinating how you can see her change and that it is all caused by the war. She has to grow up fast in order to be safe and save her niece and herself from the cruel monsters of the war. 

I also liked the relationship between Edmund and Daisy. It’s soft and cute, the desperate need to be with each other but due to the war they can’t. They’ll have to fight (literally) for their love but also for their own lives. 

The book also reflects the situation, emotions, uncertainty,... that people must have felt during the war. Not knowing if they’ll ever get home is a big aspect that gets discussed in the book. It gave me as a reader more perspective in how they could have felt during those dark times. So hands down for this book! It’s good! Even though I had so many frustrations because there weren’t any speech marks, I do recommend the book. It’s not really a documentation of facts from the war but more a story during the war which makes it a nice read instead of a boring one.

A fun fact about this book is that the book is now a movie and I’ve watched it. There are so many things alike but also differences. I loved the actors who played the characters from the book and let’s be honest... Edmund is adorable, brave, sweet, mysterious. I love Edmund, especially in the film. I also recommend the film but I would read the book first. I had it in a different order, I first saw the movie and then the book but I think it's better if you read first and then watch it.

“Every war has turning points and every person too.”