Inferno By Kat Ross The Fourth Talisman #5 Released on March 15, 2019 354 Pages YA, Fantasy
In the fifth and last volume of the Fourth Talisman series, the worlds of the living and the dead collide in a final confrontation that will leave Nocturne and Solis forever changed…. Three talismans adrift.Two mad kings.One poisonous crown. As dark forces gather at the Rock of Ariamazes in Samarqand, Nazafareen discovers that there are worse places than the afterlife. The twisted creature pulling the Vatras’ strings is holed up in the deepest level of the Dominion—and only she has the power to follow him there, though at the potential cost of her own soul. Prophecy claims the three daeva clans must unite to face their greatest enemy again, but two of the talismans have vanished and the third is a child more used to skulking in the shadows than leading an army. Meb the Mouse might be their last hope—if anyone bothers to take her seriously. And within the confines of the Rock, a dying king makes a pact with the devil, setting in motion a chain of events that could spell doom for friends and foes alike. WARNING: This book contains twists and turns, richly deserved comeuppances, shocking revelations, knock-down, drag-out fights, obsessive stalkers, some very nasty monsters…and, of course, true love.
Beware the Night By Jessika Fleck Released March 12, 2019 320 Pages YA, Fantasy
This book was provided to me from FFBC Tours in exchange for an honest review. I swear on my bookshelf that this has not affected my opinion of the book.
When her world divides, pitting light against dark, Veda must join a dangerous revolution to save her grandfather and fight against injustice...even if it costs her the boy she loves. On the island of Bellona, life is peaceful--as long as the citizens dutifully worship the Sun, which protects them from all harm. Seventeen-year-old Veda knows that keeping the Sun happy will protect her and her grandfather from the Night, the dangerous people who snatch innocent citizens from their beds under the cover of darkness, never to be seen again. As long as Veda follows the rules, she will be safe. But when Veda's grandfather is offered up as the next sacrificial offering to keep the Sun's favor, she starts to see that the safety she's been promised comes at a dangerous price. Maybe there is more to fear above than there is below. With a mysterious young man, Dorian, at her side, Veda has to figure out if the scary bedtime stories she grew up hearing are real--or dangerous lies.
Whispers from the Depths By C. W. Briar Released on February 19, 2019 YA Dark Fantasy Trigger Warning: Sexual harassment, gory violence, drowning, and slavery
This book was provided to me from YA Bound Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. I swear on my bookshelf that this has not affected my opinion of the book.
Joyful and blessed are Voice-bearers, for the Heavens have set them apart. As Whisperers gifted with the Voice, Betka and her people are enslaved. Only they can control the dangerous spirits that haunt the waters, but they are forced to serve under cruel taskmasters. Betka has little hope of freedom from her service or her own bitterness. They toil for the goodness of others. A powerful water spirit terrorizes the castle where Betka’s sister is serving. Betka is assigned to the crew sailing to face the foe, and she fears for the only family she has left. Rage is found nowhere in them. In the beleaguered, flooded castle, a new threat awaits—a magic more powerful and horrifying than anything they have ever seen. Loyalties will be tested, and enemies will become desperate allies. Betka is their only hope of escape—if she can subdue the wrath that endangers them all. She who wields the waters for revenge drowns herself tenfold.
The Falconer By Elizabeth May (The Falconer #1) Released on May 6th, 2014 Young Adult, Fantasy 378 Pages
She's a stunner.Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title—and drop-dead beauty. She's a liar.But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. she's leading a double life: She has a rare ability to sense the sìthíchean—the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans—and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them. She's a murderer.Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons—from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols—ruthless Aileana has one goal: Destroy the faery who destroyed her mother. She's a Falconer.The last in a line of female warriors born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother's murder—but she'll have to save the world first. The first volume of a trilogy from an exciting new voice in young adult fantasy, this electrifying thriller combines romance and action, steampunk technology and Scottish lore in a deliciously addictive read.
From the first time I logged into a computer, I have been lectured about online safety. Parents, teachers, neighbors, signs in hallways, and TV commercials have all warned me about the dangers of the Internet, especially meeting strangers and giving them my information. I am not saying that online friends are sketchy or not trustworthy, but the Internet has a lot of types of people and not all of them have your best interests at heart. For the most part, the book community has each other's backs and I have felt safe sharing about my personal life. That being said, Tessa is not my real name. It's a pen name that my 8th grade self created in order to protect myself on the Internet (and so that I didn't get lectured again from my mom). I have always blogged under a pen name and I don't plan on changing that in the near future. I have always been very open about my use of a pen name, but recently, a certain author has questioned the trustworthiness of bloggers who use a pseudonym. This event in the book blogging world, involving a case of stalking and invasion of privacy, is the reason that I chose to use a pen name so long ago. Instead of getting into a debate about the specifics of the event, I would like to give a list of reasons why it is perfectly acceptable for bloggers to use a pen name.
I have never had the best grasp on time. I can read for three hours, yet it will only feel like a second has passed. I can nap for five hours, but when I wake up it feels like I only slept for minutes. I can attempt to do homework for half an hour but it will feel like eons have passed. I am always the person that asks what day it is. I will be dating everything in 2018 for at least three months. So, when 2019 rolled around I couldn't believe it. There is something about the new year that seems to defy both time and space; things feel so much different yet so much the same. For that reason, I have shifted away from New Year's Resolutions and vowing to be a completely different person whenever the calendar changed to January 1st. Instead of focusing on huge yearly changes, I want to focus on daily ways to be a better person. That philosophical rant aside, here are my reflections from 2018 and my low-pressure goals for 2019.
I know that I say this every year, but 2018 was a difficult year. I only had four five-star books. In fact, a majority of the books I read were three stars or below. I am not sure if I was just heard to impress this year or if I was just extremely unlucky with my choice of TBR. Even though there is nothing wrong with three star books (for me the rating means that I liked the book without loving it), not many stories managed to WOW me this year. In the end of the year, when I finally had time to read, I hit a streak of three-star reads that wasn't necessarily a slump, but did disappoint me. The stats are not on my side, but that is where the complaining ends. My reading journey this year taught me that not every book will earn five stars, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't worth reading. Regardless of the ratings, I still managed to find books that I love and will scream about for the next year(s) to come. Out of the 50 books I read this year (which accomplished my Goodreads Challenge!) I still managed to have some favorites. Since I loved all of these books so much, I have already written posts about most of them. Instead of trying to rearticulate my ramblings, I have included the links to my original posts if you want to learn more about them. Here are my top 10 books of 2018!
The end of the year is a time of self-reflection. This year, instead of just staring into a mirror and lamenting about all of the goals I never achieved and promises that I broke to myself, I thought I would celebrate the achievements of the blogging community. So, I went to Twitter and asked for your favorite posts that you wrote this year, whether it was a review that you are proud of or a thoughtful discussion that didn't get as much love as you wanted. There is a whole spectrum of posts in this list with all kinds of book bloggers lending their favorite posts of 2018. I learned a lot from this list and found quite a few new bloggers. Sometimes, the posts that we are the most proud of aren't the ones with the most comments, the most views, or the most shares on social media. Pride doesn't have to equate to statistics. The heart writes what the heart writes, whether or not it goes viral. That being said, I hope this master list of posts can help spread some love to the posts we are most proud of this year.
*I also included some quotes from random posts to further entice you to check out these posts and their discussions.
Paper Girl By Cindy R. Wilson 400 Pages Published December 4th, 2018 Young Adult, Contemporary Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse, Panic Attacks, Drugs, and Alcoholism This book was provided to me from YA Bound Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. I swear on my bookshelf that this has not affected my opinion of the book.
I haven’t left my house in
over a year. My doctor says it’s social anxiety, but I know the only things
that are safe are made of paper. My room is paper. My world is paper.
Everything outside is fire. All it would take is one spark for me to burst into
flames. So I stay inside. Where nothing can touch me.
Then my mom hires a tutor. Jackson. This boy I had a crush on before the world
became too terrifying to live in. Jackson’s life is the complete opposite of
mine, and I can tell he’s got secrets of his own. But he makes me feel things.
Makes me want to try again. Makes me want to be brave. I can almost taste the
outside world. But so many things could go wrong, and all it takes is one spark
for everything I love to disappear...
As soon as December 1st hits, it is the Christmas season for me (sometimes even before that). And, at least in my hemisphere, that means sweaters, snow, and everything else wintry. So, I am calling my combined wrap-up of October and November my "fall wrap-up" in order to properly welcome the holiday spirit and winter wonderfulness. Not to mention the fact that I have already had snow in my wonderful Northern location, so I am going to reap the benefits of the winter season if Mother Nature is going to throw snow at us this early.
How to Fracture a Fairy Tale By Jane Yolen Published on November 5, 2018 320 Pages Fantasy, Short Stories, Retellings This book was provided to me from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I swear on my bookshelf that this has not affected my opinion of the book.
Fantasy legend Jane Yolen presents a wide-ranging offering of fractured fairy tales. Yolen fractures the classics to reveal their crystalline secrets, holding them to the light and presenting them entirely transformed; where a spinner of straw into gold becomes a money-changer and the big bad wolf retires to a nursing home. Rediscover the tales you once knew, rewritten and refined for the world we now live in―or a much better version of it.
By Kendare Blake Three Dark Crowns #1 Published on September 20, 2016 398 Pages Young Adult, Fantasy
When kingdom come, there will be one. In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born—three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions. But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins. The last queen standing gets the crown.
I am the first to admit that I am a coward. I don't do horror movies, haunted houses, scary costumes, or anything that will involve a jump scare. When it comes to horror, I am screaming mess who reacts to every little scare (sometimes things that aren't even meant to be scary). Due to my sensitivity to spookiness, I always feel left out during the Halloween season. After the age of 12, it is so longer acceptable to wear cute costumes and content yourself with candy. Instead, you are meant to dive headfirst into a world of horror, blood, and guts-- a world I was not meant for. For the past couple of years, I have been searching for the common ground between scaring myself senseless and just sitting on my couch alone, eating candy while watching rom-coms. So, in the spirit of being a scaredy-cat who still wants to enjoy Halloween, I am going to list some of my favorite Halloween inspired books to help you enjoy the season even if it scares the dickens out of you.
My favorite villains are the ones who may not be evil. I love a good villain who can convince me that they are the hero of their own story. I love conflict between right and wrong that doesn't have a clear answer, as the line between good and bad is rarely clear in the real world either. In short, I like it when villains make me think. They need to have a good backstory. They might even be masquerading as heroes. Sometimes a main character is neither unequivocally good or bad, and I think that the gray area in between is the most interesting. I am interested in where the lines meet, when a character is not necessarily a hero but doesn't exactly fit the bill of a villain either. Authors who can make me love a villain or root for an unlikeable anti-hero have clearly mastered the art of the character. Here's a list of my current favorite complicated villains and morally ambiguous heroes (and heroines!).
By Maureen Johnson Truly Devious #1 Published on January 18, 2018 416 Pages Young Adult, Mystery
Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. "A place" he said, "where learning is a game."Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym, Truly Devious. It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.
5 Takeaways is a feature designed to exalt books that deserve more than just a review. You can see the other posts in this feature here. This feature is specifically for books when I decide that a review was kind of pointless. Almost everyone knows about the book and you don't need another person screaming at you to read this book (no matter how amazing it is).It is a given that my review would never do it justice. Instead of convincing you to read it, I want to discuss what I got out of it besides a five-star review. The Hitchhiker's Guide is a renowned classic on multiple levels, but not on the dusty old level of Shakespeare and Dickens (which I say with the most love possible, as an English major). It is a cult classic that has greatly influenced science fiction, including one of my favorite shows of all time, Doctor Who. Even though it isn't an academic classic, there are still a bunch of takeaways worth discussing (in a fun way, not in an English class way, I promise).
The seasons have finally changed and I am embracing the colder weather by staying inside with a cup of tea and a good book. Time is moving faster than the falling leaves and I am completely unprepared to say goodbye to September. I had forgotten how quickly time moves in college, with countless deadlines and sleepless nights making time a little too scarce. I haven't even had time to put up my Halloween decorations yet. But, as months come and go, I just remind myself that we are a little bit closer to Christmas. I am not in the business of holiday erasure though, so I fully plan on celebrating Halloween, particularly with some "spooky" novels. Even though I can't do full on horror (for books or movies), I am planning on reading books with more mysteries, ghosts, and witches. But first, let's recap what happens at Crazy for YA and in my life during September!
Hello, my name is Tessa and I am really bad at keeping up with series. I have talked about this before in a discussion post, but the time has come again to shame myself into actually finishing some series. Unfortunately, this problem even affects my favorite authors. Even though I have loved their past writing, I cannot bring myself to read their other books. Sometimes it is due to the fear of being disappointed (a girl has to have high standards) or sometimes I just get distracted by shiny new books. Regardless, I still love each and every one of these authors, even if I haven't gotten to one (or maybe three) of their books yet. Fun fact: Most of these books can be found in my TTT from 2016. Yes, my procrastination problems span years, not mere weeks.
Like Rome, Crazy for YA was not built in a day. Or even a year. This little baby is going on six years and I still don't think that it is completely built. But, despite the never-ending pursuit of building the perfect blog, the process of writing, posting, reviewing on this blog has changed my life. When I started this blog with my friends, I didn't think it would last beyond middle school, let alone to the 500th post milestone that I am celebrating right now. Writing a single review would take me hours, and they didn't have graphics, SEO, fancy fonts, or even a book summary. What they did have was an obnoxious pink font and a whole lot of love and care. However, despite the obnoxious colors, middle school writing, and complete lack of design, I still haven't deleted any of my old posts. There is literally an archive of my blogging journey (mistakes and all) still available for public criticism. This blog is me. This is me at my best and at my worst. These typos are me. These terrible graphics are me. These bad decisions, lack of knowledge, hurried posts, all led to where I am today. And all I can say is that the view is pretty good from here. That being said, read on if you want to see a timeline of Crazy for YA throughout 500 posts and six years!
The Fourth Talisman #1 400 Pages Published on October 14, 2017 Young Adult, Fantasy
This book was provided to me from Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. I swear on my bookshelf that this has not affected my opinion of the book.
Nocturne, a wilderness of eternal night. Solis, a wasteland of endless day. Nazafareen is a Breaker, a mortal who has the rare ability to shatter spell magic—although her power carries a high price. With the memories of her former self erased and nowhere else to turn, she comes to Nocturne hoping to start a new life under the triple moons of the darklands. But when an assassin forces Nazafareen to flee to the sunlit mortal city of Delphi, she finds herself embroiled in a deeper mystery whose origins lie far in the past. Why was the continent sundered into light and dark a thousand years before? And what really happened to the elegant but ruthless creatures who nearly reduced the world to ashes? The new Oracle might know, but she’s outlawed magic and executes anyone caught practicing it. Nazafareen must hide her powers and find a way out of the city—before it’s too late. As the net slowly tightens, something ancient and vengeful begins to stir in the arid death zone called the Kiln. A dashing daeva named Darius is pursuing Nazafareen, but so are a multitude of enemies. War is brewing again. Can she stay alive long enough to stop it? So begins the first installment in an epic new fantasy series from the author of the Fourth Element Trilogy!
By Kat Ross
