Book Review: The Sleepwalkers by: J. Gabriel Gates

Goodreads Summary: 


A chilling and masterfully crafted teen horror novel guaranteed to keep the pages turning, the mind reeling, and the lamp on any reader's bedside table on long after midnight. 

Privileged and popular Caleb Mason is celebrating his high school graduation when he receives a mysterious, disturbing letter from his long-lost childhood playmate, Christine. Caleb and his jokester friend Bean decide to travel to his tiny hometown of Hudsonville, Florida, to find her. Upon arrival, they discover the town has taken a horrifying turn for the worse. Caleb's childhood home is abandoned and his father has disappeared. Children are going missing. The old insane asylum has reopened, and Christine is locked inside. Her mother, a witch, is consumed with madness, and Christine's long-dead twin sister whispers clues to Caleb through the static of an a.m. radio. The terrifying prophesies of the spirits are coming to pass. Sixteen clocks are ticking; sixty-six murdered souls will bring about the end of the world. As Caleb peels back layer after layer of mystery, he uncovers a truth more horrible than anything he had imagined, a truth that could only be uttered by the lips of the dead.






My Review:

ReadingNook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I read this book right around Halloween time and it was a perfect book to read, its creepy and frightening and kept me flipping through the pages! 


The Main Character Caleb recieves a disturbing letter from a girl that was part of his past, and it haunts him so much he decides that instead of going to Africa after high school like he planned he's going to go to his hometown, and visit his Dad who he hasen't seen in years, and see whats going on with his friend Christine. Arriving at his old hometown is not what Caleb could have imagined in his wildest dreams. His fathers house is abandoned but with all his belongings inside, and there's a creepy presence not only in his fathers house, but also in the whole town.


This book is filled with witches, a more sinister verision of sleepwalkers, magic, evil, and a writing style that will make your palms sweat, and entice you to keep turning the pages. J. Gabriel Gates draws you in with this creepy story, and I loved it. I've never read anything like it, and it was a perfect Halloween read. If you like suspense and being frightened by a book, be sure to pick this one up!! 

Waiting on Wednesday (11)

Goodreads Summary: 


For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in the palace and compete for the heart of the gorgeous Prince Maxon. 

But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn't want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks. 

Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she's made for herself- and realizes that the life she's always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.




Expected Publication Date: April 24th, 2012 from Harper Teen
Preorder: HERE!!


WHY I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS BOOK:  Honestly when Katie from Katies Book Blog mentioned in her IMM that it was The Bachelor meets the Hunger Games I immediately added it to my wishlist, that concept sounding so amazingly awesome!! and seriously look at this cover it's stunning!! April cannot come fast enough!! 

IMM week of Dec. 18th (day late)

Book Review: The Pledge by: Kimberly Derting

Goodreads Summary: 


In the violent country of Ludania, the classes are strictly divided by the language they speak. The smallest transgression, like looking a member of a higher class in the eye while they are speaking their native tongue, results in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina has always been able to understand the languages of all classes, and she's spent her life trying to hide her secret. The only place she can really be free is the drug-fueled underground clubs where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. It's there that she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy named Max who speaks a language she's never heard before . . . and her secret is almost exposed.

Charlie is intensely attracted to Max, even though she can't be sure where his real loyalties lie. As the emergency drills give way to real crisis and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that Charlie is the key to something much bigger: her country's only chance for freedom from the terrible power of a deadly regime.




My Review:


ReadingNook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars


I loved Kimberly Dertings Body Finder series, so I was super excited to get my hands on a copy of the Pledge, and the verdict is that I loved it. It was so unique as far as dystopians go, and had a bit of an old-world feel with the class system and the monarchy that exsists.

This book could have definitely been a stand-alone, but I'm glad that it's not. I say it could be a stand-alone because the story wrapped up nicely and didn't end on a huge cliff-hanger as most series books do. I'm happy it's a series though because I think Kimberly can build up this world as well as the characters and really make something spectacular.

I love Kimberly's writing style, and I feel like I usually fly right through them, and want more from her! She's quickly becoming a favorite author of mine, and her books are those that are on auto-buy for me. She dosen't let me down, and this novel is no exception.

If you're a fan of dystopians and even historical fiction (this isn't historical fiction, but has that old-world feel) then your in for a treat with this book. The only reason it didn't recieve 5 stars is because I wanted more world-building and character development and I'm hoping we'll get more of that in the second book.

Waiting on Wednesday (10)

GoodReads Summary:


Seventeen-year-old Jane can’t quite face her mother’s alcoholism even though it sucks to spend all her time and energy keeping them afloat—making sure her mom gets to work, that the bills are paid when there’s money to pay them, and that no one knows her mom is so messed up. But when Jane’s mom drives drunk almost killing both them and Jane’s best friend, Jane can no longer deny her mom is spiraling out of control. Jane has only one place to turn: her older brother Ethan, who left years ago to go to college. A summer away with him and his tornado chasing buddies may just provide the time and space she needs to figure out whether her life still includes her mother


Expected Publication Date: August 2nd, 2012 from Putnam








Why I Can't Wait for This Book:  Twister was always a favorite movie of mine growing up, the adrenaline rush of chasing a tornado always has intrigued me and i've never read a book dealing with that concept and feel like it's going to be AMAZING!!! I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS BOOK!! 

Book Review: Dark Inside by: Jeyn Roberts

Goodreads Summary:


Four teenagers on the same road in a world gone mad. Struggling to survive, clinging on to love and meaning wherever it can be found. THE DARK INSIDE is a stunning, cinematic thriller: 28 DAYS LATER meets THE ROAD. 

Since mankind began, civilizations have always fallen: the Romans, the Greeks, the Aztecs…. Now it’s our turn. 

Huge earthquakes rock the world. Cities are destroyed. But something even worse is happening. An ancient evil has been unleashed, hooking on to weakness, turning the unwary into hunters, killers, crazies. 

Mason: His mother is dying after a terrible car accident. As he endures a last vigil at her hospital bed, his school is bombed and razed to the ground. Everyone he knows is killed. 

Aries: A school bus, an aftershock and a crash. Pulled out of the wreckage by a mysterious stranger, she’s about to discover a world changed forever.

Clementine: An emergency meeting at the town hall that descends into murderous chaos. Outside the rest of their community encircle with weapons. How can those you trust turn into savage strangers? 

Michael: A brutal road rage incident. When the police arrive on the scene they gun down the guilty and turn on the by-standing crowd. Where do you go for justice when even the lawmakers have turned bad?

My Review:

ReadingNook Rating: 4 out 5 stars

As soon as I heard the premise of this book, I knew I needed to read it. I love post-apocaliptic books, as well as dystopian and natural disaster storys, and this book was a culmination of all of that. An earthquake of epic proportions occurs, but the aftermath is where the real devasation begins, when people start turning into killing-machines that they name the baggers with black veins in their eyes that kill everyone in their paths.

This is not a pretty story at all, its graphic, at times a bit disturbing, but its fast-paced, action-packed, and extremely hard to put down. It's been compared to 28 days later, which is a zombie-movie that I LOVED, and I agree that it had that same kind of feel.

The story follows 4 different main characters, and while sometimes in the beginning I felt it a bit confusing as to what happened to who, it became a bit easier towards the middle of the story and pieced together nicely, and I do enjoy books that have multiple points of view because I feel like you can always find at least one character that you can relate too.

This book raises the age old question of humanity, and what us as humans are really capable of when put in an end-of-the-world, survival-of-the-fittest type scenerio. How far would people really go to survive or save those that are their worlds (family, friends, lovers, etc.)

If your looking for a fast-paced, page turner of a dystopian, you should give this book a try. It was promising, and was a great book, and just what I wanted to read at the time that I picked this book up.

Book Review: Envy by: Gregg Olsen

Goodreads Summary: 


Murder is such a dirty word…

New York Times bestselling adult true crime author Gregg Olsen makes his YA debut with EMPTY COFFIN, a gripping new fiction series for teens based on ripped-from-the-headlines stories…with a paranormal touch.

Crime lives--and dies--in the deceptively picture-perfect town of Port Gamble (aka “Empty Coffin”), Washington. Evil lurks and strange things happen--and 15-year-olds Hayley and Taylor Ryan secretly use their wits and their telepathic “twin-sense” to uncover the truth about the town's victims and culprits.


Envy, the series debut, involves the mysterious death of the twins' old friend, Katelyn. Was it murder? Suicide? An accident? Hayley and Taylor are determined to find out--and as they investigate, they stumble upon a dark truth that is far more disturbing than they ever could have imagined.


Based on the shocking true crime about cyber-bullying, Envy will take you to the edge--and push you right over.

My Review: 

ReadingNook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars! 

This book was definitely not what I imagined it would be when I read the synopsis, but thats definitely not a bad thing. I found out from a fellow blogger while reading this book that Gregg Olsen based this story loosely on an actualy cyber-bullying case, which I found extremely interesting, and think that bullying in general is an important topic esp. for young adults, as suicides are prevelant amoungst bullying victims. 

Katelyn, a young high school student was found by her mother on Christmas Day dead in her bathtub, but was it a suicide, a murder, or something else sininster in nature?? Twins Taylor and Haley Ryan try to solve the mystery of their once close friends death, but find deeper, darker secrets hidden as well in the mix. 

The construction of this book itself is amazing, in fact the second I saw it in person I immediately knew that I needed it in my collection. The pages are crisp white, and the end pages are full of scrabble pieces. The book overall is just extremely well-made and the cover is so creeptastic! I love it. 

Gregg Olsen writes a creeptastic and fast paced novel, I read this right around Halloween and it was the perfect book. I'm so happy that this is going to be part of a series and I cannot wait to read more in the Empty Coffin Novels.

Waiting on Wednesday (9)

Waiting on Wendsday is hosted by Jill over at Breaking The Spine where we show the books that are not yet released, but that we are eagerly awaiting!

Goodreads Summary:

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out. 

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic in training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws threaten to launch what’s left of humanity into civil war, and she’s not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will discover that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them—connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there. 

Dan Wells, acclaimed author of I Am Not a Serial Killer, takes readers on a pulse-pounding journey into a world where the very concept of what it means to be human is in question—one where our humanity is both our greatest liability and our only hope for survival.

Expected Release Date: Feb. 28th, 2012 from Harper Collins

Preorder: HERE!!

Why I'm Waiting for This Book: This just sounds like a such a unique, end-of-the-world dystopian!! I can't get enough of dystopian books, as I'm sure you're all aware of at this point!! I've heard phenomenal things about this book, and Dan Wells in general and haven't yet read any of his work!! 

In My Mailbox Week of 12/4

IMM is hosted by Kristi over at The Story Siren where we show the books we've recieved in the mailbox over the past week. 

For Review:

Thanks to NetGalley

Thanks to the Author Kevin Turner

That's all I got in my mailbox this week, had a bit of a slow week which is quite alright seeing I do have tons to read!! 

What did you go get in your mailbox??

Chick Lit Plus Blog Tour Review: Chosen by: Chandra Hoffman

GoodReads Summary:

In Chosen, a young caseworker becomes increasingly entangled in the lives of adoptive and birth parents, with devastating results.

It all begins with a fantasy: the caseworker in her "signing paperwork" charcoal suit standing alongside beaming parents cradling their adopted newborn, set against a fluorescent-lit delivery-room backdrop. It's this blissful picture that keeps Chloe Pinter, director of the Chosen Child's domestic-adoption program, happy while juggling the high demands of her boss and the incessant needs of both adoptive and biological parents.

But the very job that offers her refuge from her turbulent personal life and Portland's winter rains soon becomes a battleground involving three very different couples: the Novas, well-off college sweethearts who suffered fertility problems but are now expecting their own baby; the McAdoos, a wealthy husband and desperate wife for whom adoption is a last chance; and Jason and Penny, an impoverished couple who have nothing—except the baby everyone wants. When a child goes missing, dreams dissolve into nightmares, and everyone is forced to examine what he or she really wants and where it all went wrong.

Told from alternating points of view, Chosen reveals the desperate nature of desire across social backgrounds and how far people will go to get the one thing they think will be the answer.

My Review: 

ReadingNook Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Chosen is one of those books whose topic is extrememly powerful and real, and many people can relate to the reality of it. Adoption and trying to concieve is a topic that many couples deal with on a regular basis, and while personally I don't have any experience with this topic as of yet, I still can understand the emotional connection that people feel with children and babies. 

The main character Chloe Pinter is a case worker for an adoption program that she feels truely passionate about. Being able to help familys that can't concieve on their own and are desperate for a baby that joy, and to comfort parents that are about to have a child that they cannot finacially or mentally support. Parts of this book were extremely graphic, but personally I felt like it added to the vivid picture that Hoffman was trying to create to show the severe circumstances that these babies could potentially be brought into. 

Adoption is not an easy process, it's very expensive and mentally draining, who has the right to choose whether your fit to be parents, and who should be allowed to have that much power and control? 

This book wasn't chick-lit at all in my opinion and I would have catagorized it as Women's Fiction and felt similar to the writing style of Jodi Picoult. I did enjoy the topic of this story, but the characters for a while confused me, I felt like too many characters were thrown at me too quickly, and I couldn't really form an emotional connection to any of them. That could be in part because at this time i'm not a parent, but i am at the age and circumstances where that could be in my near future. 

I feel like many people can relate to this book, but I also feel that it's not a book for the faint of heart, Like i stated earlier parts of this story are a bit graphic and explicit. Overall, if you like a story with a lot of hard-hitting topics, and drama then you should give this book a try.

Book Review: Tuesday's Child by: Dale Mayer

GoodReads Summary: 

What she doesn’t want...is exactly what he needs.

Shunned and ridiculed all her life for something she can’t control, Samantha Blair hides her psychic abilities and lives on the fringes of society. Against her will, however, she’s tapped into a killer—or rather, his victims. Each woman’s murder, blow-by-blow, ravages her mind until their death releases her back to her body. Sam knows she must go to the authorities, but will the rugged, no-nonsense detective in charge of tracking down the killer believe her?

Detective Brandt Sutherland only trusts hard evidence, yet Sam’s visions offer clues he needs to catch a killer. The more he learns about her incredible abilities, however, the clearer it becomes that Sam’s visions have put her in the killer’s line of fire. Now Brandt must save her from something he cannot see or understand…and risk losing his heart in the process.

As danger and desire collide, passion raises the stakes in a game Sam and Brandt don’t dare lose. 

Purchase Here: Amazon

ReadingNook Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Review:

Samantha has a psychic ability that for years has tormented her, because she can't read minds, and she can't predict the future like normal psychics usually can, No, Samatha gets visions of woman that are being murdered by the same serial killer as the murders are taking place, she not only feels everything the victim feels, but she also bleeds just as the victims themself bleed. Samantha feels she needs to confide to the polce the visions she sees, because if it can help save one woman's life then its worth all her pain and suffering. 

The police see her a suspect, and don't believe her pyschic abilities and think she either has a few screws loose or is the murderer herself. But when Officer Brandt Sutherland takes special interest in her, because what she predicts is happening detail for detail, he dosen't see her a vicious monster but a helpless woman with an ability that tramatizes her day in and day out. Samantha feels like she's finally helping but when demons from her past start showing up, and she's outed as helping the police find the murderer, will her abilities help or will they lead her to be a victim herself? 

This book had a great mix of romance, paranormal elements, and suspense. I enjoyed that the paranormal aspects felt believeable and weren't overplayed. The characters were strong and well-thought out, and Mayer created a story that keeps you engaged from the beginning of the story. As a huge fan of Law and Order, I felt it had similar feelings to that, but with a paranormal aspect, that obviously the show doesn't have. If you like suspence, romance, and bit of paranormal activity then you should check this book out!

December TBR Pile

November Wrap-Up

Books Read in November:

- Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children {My Review}

- Lie by: Caroline Bock {My Review}

-The Sleepwalkers by: J. Gabriel Gates

-If I Tell by: Janet Gurtler {My Review}

-Tuesday's Child by: Dale Mayer *review coming on friday!

-The Pledge by: Kimberly Derting

-Saving June by: Hannah Harrington

-Chosen by: Chandra Hoffman *review coming on saturday!

Favorite Book Read this Past Month

Tie between: 

If I tell & Saving June

RAK Wrap-UP

I recieved:

Thanks to Angela at Reading Angel

Thanks to Joli at Acting up with Books