Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

I’m telling you why we broke up, Ed. I’m writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened.

This line was enough to grab my attention, and not to forget the cover page and catchy title. I always like mysterious young adult novels. I just know it by looking at the title. Like ”Perks of being a wall flower”, ”Thirteen reasons why”. My prediction never went wrong.

Min Green and Ed Slaterton are breaking up, so Min is writing him letters and giving him a box. Inside the box is why they broke up. Inside the box there are things which he bought for her or things she collected from their dates. Starting from movie tickets from their first date she collects whatever she comes across, to remember the good time they had together. Min is a girl who dreams about being a movie director one day. Her world is simple with few friends. Ed is totally different than her, he is popular and cool among his friends. This is Min’s first love so this is totally special for her. Everyone is surprised that Ed is going out with Min. If everything was perfect then why did Min brake up?

I loved Min, the way she is simple and innocent. Ed is a big jerk from the beginning I could feel that. I liked Min’s friend more than Ed, I wished they could date! Good young adult novel, my rating: 3 out of 5. Highly recommend this book to teenagers.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead ( Vampire Academy # 1)

Oohoo.. finally read this book! wanted to read from a long time. I have read many vampire novels about their school and education and other stuff. But this one stands apart.

 Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. Dhampir are meant for protecting the Moroi vampires. They are strong and faithful  Lissa and Rose escaped from the St. Vladimir’s Academy which is boarding school for vampires and half blooded who protect them. But they were found and brought back to school again. Rose is ready to risk her life for Lissa, with whom she has developed a bond which is very rare. There is someone who is monitoring everything and everyone especially Lissa. But there is something happening to Lissa too, something magical beyond the control. And there is  deathly fear of the Striogoi: vampires who have become immortal and seek to destroy all of the royal families by drinking the blood of Morois.

Vampire Academy is a vampire thriller novel with lot of suspense and twists. As the story goes on it is difficult to put down the book. My rating: 4 out of 5. I recommend this book to young adults and vampire fiction lovers.

Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho

”I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It’s all a question of how I view my life.”  - Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho

I am totally in love with Paulo Coelho’s books. He takes simple subjects to write a book and once you are done reading you know you have different prospective towards the same simple subject. philosophical and inspiring thoughts with simple yet interesting story line is his specialty.  I have read 6 books from this author till now including this book. All are wonderful master pieces, I should say for some books I might have rated less, but it depends how you like the subject in the book.

”Eleven minutes” is a story of young Brazilian girl Maria, who is heartbroken over first innocent crush. And then she believes that she will never get her true love and decides that love is a terrible thing which will make you suffer. In Rio on her first real vacation she meets this man who gives her chance to go to Geneva for work. But this work which will make her rich is prostitution. She has 2 choices, one to go back to her village and live as if nothing happened and marry this gentle man who said he will wait for her to come back, even though she is not in love with him. And the second choice is to live the life here make money by giving sexual pleasure and go back to village after making enough money to buy a farm and be happy with her parents.  Yes, she chose the second one, it may seem easy but it is not. Maria meets this 2 different people while she is in Geneva, who wants to show her 2 different ways of pleasure.  One is pleasure by pain and sex and another one is pleasure of sacred sex, but the choice is Maria’s weather to search pleasure in pain or pleasure in finding the inner light.

This is quite different topic. I would not prefer this book for young adults. Even though it is lacking lot of inspiring things I kinda liked this book. But some philosophies are good to read but not to follow. As they say everyone has their own way to explore their life and take chances, this is a different way of knowing the ups and downs of life and finding the love. My rating 3 out of 5.

Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover ( Slammed # 2)

“I know how you like to be asked and not told. But I’m not asking you to marry me…I’m telling you to marry me, Lake.. because I can’t live without you.” - Colleen Hoover ( Point of retreat)

Point of retreat picks up exactly from where the Slammed ended. Slammed took me to a different world of slam and love. I definitely wanted to read this second book to get more high with slams. This is tender love story of Will and Lake. Now that Lake’s mother is dead, Lake is responsible for her brother the same way Will is responsible for his brother. They all are one family now. But when someone from Will’s past emerges and tries to get back with Will, Lake can’t take it. She doubts their love and relation. Will Lake understand that their love is true, not built on sympathy because they both are in same situation? Can Will get away this ghost from the past who is always trying to flirt with him?

This is a good book, but not good as the first one. I wanted to give 4 but I ended up giving 3. If you are expecting something similar to Slammed then forget it. Even the slams used in this book are not as good as the one in first book. OK now I am comparing too much. Light romance with lot of emotions= Point of retreat.  There is another book in this series- This Girl, god! these series nowadays

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater ( The Wolves of Mercy Falls # 1)

Recently I am acting like a crazy teenager, obsessed with YA novels. I always liked Good YA novels, with vampires, werewolves or witches, paranormal romance and crazy family drama’s. This time I picked another series ”The Wolves of Mercy Falls”. I was really excited to read about werewolves it has been a very long time since ”Blood and Chocolates” that I have read something related to wolves. But after reading 25- 30 pages I lost my interest. It is slow going, boring type of novel where everyday same kind of thing happens. I was waiting for some real werewolf action which never came.

Grace remembers that day when she was really young and a group of wolves dragged her to the woods and tried to eat her. There was this wolf with yellow eyes saved her and stood for her. After that every year for almost 16 years she saw this yellow wolf in winter time looking at her from woods.  Grace always tried to reach to him or communicate but failed. Sam lived 2 different lives, in summer as a boy and winter as a wolf. One day Grace meets this yellow eyed guy and from that moment she knows its her wolf. But there is not much time for love when Sam has limited time in human form. She finds out that this is the last time Sam is going to be human after that he is wolf forever.

This story line is really good but the way it was expressed is boring. It is a good read if you think ”I don’t mind to read whatever it is until and unless it has werewolves in it”. There were really some strong characters like Jack, Beck and Shelby which could have given more weight to the story but some how Grace and Sam were only two important people and rest seemed nothing. My rating: 2 out of 5.

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause

This is vampire and human love story. Where Zoey falls for Simon, who is 300 years older than her. This was published in 1990. I liked the book from the beginning, this is what real vampires are if there are! Because here Simon can’t cross the running water, can’t stand the crucifix, can’t enter without invited to anybody’s house and he can’t walk in the sunlight free.

Zoey is a normal teenager who is going through lot more than a normal teenager do. Her mom is dying at the hospital, her dad is so much into his work and hospital that he doesn’t get time to talk to her or he is avoiding her. Her best friend is moving to some where far, even she doesn’t want to talk about Zoey’s problems. Totally she is on her own. She meets this handsome guy called Simon one night at the park and falls for him with out knowing who he is but when she comes to knows she is gone far away to come back. Simon wants to take revenge on his brother who put him to this black hole and who is slaughtering women at night. Will Simon succeed in this? What will happen to Zoey and Simon?

It is kind of sad ending but it was somehow perfect ending. I have read this author’s ”Blood and Chocolate” novel. But ”The Silver Kiss” is her debut novel.   My rating: 3 out of 5.

Chosen by P C Cast

Every single vampire book comes in series. It is like you read the first one, you have to read every single book in the series to know what happens to the characters. I kind of hate reading series ( Hunger Games and Harry potter doesn’t come under this category )

I am not a big fan of ”House of night” series but as I started reading it I thought to finish it. Chosen is the third book in the series. First book was good but later after reading the second book I felt there is nothing horror in it. It seems very childish to me to read about vampire school and Zoey and her friend’s stupidity. I am not that impressed with the story line either. This book starts of with Zoey’s birthday and how much she hates Christmas themed birthday presents. Zoey is confused in this book because she has 3 boy friends. One Human, one on the way to become vampire and other one is a full grown vampire. Now that she knows what happened to her best friend Stevie Rae, after she died. She wants to help her find a way back to humanity. But problems starts when a vampire body is found on school ground. Is it another trick of Neferet’s or really people of faith are killing vampires?

My rating: 2 out of 5. I don’t know what 9 more books in the series contain.

Slammed by Colleen Hoover

This book totally blew me away, an excellent book, shocked it’s a debut novel! There is a slam poet inside me so it didn’t take much to like the book. I was in love with it the second I started reading.

The characters were strong, compelling, and believable. The main character is Lake. Lake and Will and their ethical and moral dilemma shuts down their relationship. But they can’t change what they feel for each other even though it is not right.  Lake’s mother had a secret that turned their world upside down. I liked Will as he appealed to me as a very strong character with lot of burden on his life.

Inclusion of a poetry slam in the story is best. You can feel the pain, happiness of the poet in the slams. I just loved it and wrote few more slams but all looked like I got inspired from the slams from this book. One day I will have my own slamming blog  YA fans it is a best book to read! My rating is 4 out of 5.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

“The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.”

Memoirs of a Geisha is an amazing novel that discusses the life of a Geisha, a Japanese artist-entertainer. I’d been wanting to read this one for a very long time. I got mixed feelings while reading this book, so many emotions passed through me. I read this book last month and for almost 2 weeks I had hangover!

A slave, sold by your own family, and trained for the sole purpose of pleasuring men, whether you like it or not. Imagine living such a life where you don’t have enough happiness left inside you but still you have to make others happy.Geisha are not prostitutes, the happiness they give is purely from hanging around in tea house with gentlemen who seek their company and poring them tea, Sake and listening to their stories, telling them stories and jokes.

This is a story of a girl Chiyo who was sold into geisha training in Japan. Her struggles to achieve the goal and turn into a geisha. But this story is so unpredictable. Chiyo’s love for Chairman and Nobu’s interest in Chiyo, their customs and traditions to become Geisha is so complicated. I loved all characters even though some characters were real trouble to the main character.

I have watched the movie right after reading the book. In movie they haven’t changed much may be that’s why I liked the movie too. My rating is 4 out of 5 for this book. I recommend this book to fiction lovers.

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

”The First Grave on the Right” is witty and humorous young adult fiction which you can categorize into  Paranormal category. Here comes our kick ass heroine Charley Davidson: part-time private investigator and full-time Grim Reaper. Charley Davidson, this name sounds more like a man’s name  to me

Our heroine can see dead people, its like she is a portal for heaven. Dead people can cross and go to another world where souls belong. It is author  Darynda Jones’s debut novel and first book in  Charley Davidson series. She works as private investigator helping her uncle to solve murder mysteries. Because it is easy to find out who killed when a dead person comes and tells you who killed him. Crazy right, its freaky but interesting concept. Charley has to invest a case where lot of murders are involved and she gets into trouble with bad people. But she is in love with a weird person whom she can feel but can’t see. This soul comes in her dreams and gives all romantic experiences. Who is this? What is this mystery she is about to solve? How did she get this power to see this souls?

I liked the concept and humor. This book is fresh and lively read if you are into paranormal novels. My rating: 3 out of 5.