Catching Up

I love to get cute things.  Anything that makes me smile.  I had a REALLY rough week last week with getting grades together for the end of the first quarter.  Then to get monogrammed "Pumpkin doodles" from one of my students made all of the stress worth it.  So now that I'm caught up with my grades, I can catch up with my book reviews.

The Mind Games by Lori Brighton
This is the last book(#3) in her series titled The Mind Readers.  I was drawn into the Mind Readers series by the originality of the subject matte for me at that time.  I was still new to YA and had only read a few books.  80 books later, I have found that it's not that original of a concept.  Young girl doesn't know she can read thoughts, finds out there's more of her, goes to find them, finds out there are good and evil versions, falls in love, mistakes her boyfriend for the enemy, runs away, finds boyfriend,  gets separated from boyfriend, vows to find him.  And that's just the first two!  In the last book, along with finding her boyfriend, who is being held captive by her father of course, she comes to many realizations about herself and her life.  The only problem is, that these realizations came in the last 10% of the book.  I'll have to admit, I was kind of disappointed with the rushed conclusion of the book.  It left me a little confused and still questioning.  But maybe that's what the author was going for.  Book 4 maybe?  That would be nice.

When you run in certain literary circles, mine happens to be YA paranormal/romance, you fall into a pattern and then begin to hear certain authors names.  And I have to admit, whenever I get hold of a good one, I read everything they have!  Such is the case with M. Leighton.  Here's my M. Leighton Review-a-Thon, to go with my Read-a-Thon of her books recently.
Fragile
I don't know what made me start with this one.  Maybe it was because it wasn't in a series and I knew that there was nothing that was going to suck me in.  How wrong I was!  This book was the epitome of young romance and sacrifice.  The main characters were more than realistic, as were the other characters in the book.  This was a sweet and romantic story for all ages.  I won't even give any spoilers away because that's how much I think everyone should read it!
Gravity
This is the first in a series called the Eclipse series.  This book is so supernatural with it's random creatures, it borders on fantasy.  I enjoyed the main characters, twins, which is unusual to find.  There's also a tertiary main character who plays a significant part in their "trio."  It started off a little too far-fetched for me, but then when you realize that it takes place in an isolated location where everyone is a plant, it begins to make sense. I am very interested in seeing how M. carries out this story.  After I figured out what was going on, it got very interesting.  I love the play on people's second nature manifesting itself in the supernatural.
Madly and Madly and Wolfhardt (Madly #1 & #2)
Again, this was another series that started off so far-fetched that I didn't think I would like them.  It is after all, about Mermaid and Mermen.  But what M. did that totally pulled me into this book was she created this world where we have misconceived all of our fairy tales and they really aren't these happy-ending stories that we first thought.  Clever!  It's with her savvy thought and creative writing that I sped through both of these books.  I look forward to taking on Madly and the Jackal this weekend.
For the Love of a Vampire (Blood Like Poison #1)
I have no idea where she even comes up with so many ideas (all of these books plus some were published within the past two years), but I am loving them!  This is not your mamma's vampire book.  Ahem....Twilight.  This book is dark and somber.  It's not your typical characters with your typical every day life.  Both of these characters have some serious issues that they're dealing with.  And that's what fascinated me.  Although there wasn't very much good in their lives, they had each other, you would think.  This book also does not end the way every other book ends. There's no happy ending here.  Another reason to read the next one.   Add that to my list for this weekend!

As you can see, I've been busy these past couple of weeks.  The reviews should slow to an even pace here soon, now that I'm "caught up."  I'm presently reading Meant to Be by Tiffany King.  That should be an interesting review.  Until then, happy hunting!