Pre-blogiversary & Birthday Giveaway #2: Win an ARC of Fated by Alyson Noel!

So I was thinking of what book I'll give away next, and this morning I received a tweet from a friend asking if I'm going to a signing event for author Alyson Noel. Of course I panicked after reading! Not many YA authors, or authors in general, stop over my country and do a signing so I decided right then and there that I won't pass up the chance to meet her!

And in case you don't believe me, here is a screenshot of her tweet:

And the link: https://twitter.com/AlysonNoel/status/218852947927375872

It's like the world conspired in my favor because I'm about to give away my extra ARC of Fated, Alyson's newest book release! This is the first book in the Soul Seekers series! I've read it, I liked it better than her Immortals series and now here is your chance to win it! As always, if you live overseas and you can help pay for the shipping, you are free to join the contest! Since I'm attending the signing, I'd love to meet you there as well!

For Filipino book bloggers/readers/friends, I'll end this in time for you to receive the ARC and if you are attending the event, hopefully you can get this one signed by Alyson at the signing event on Powerbooks.

One ARC of Alyson Noel's Fated up for grabs!

Rules:

MUST BE 13 YEARS OLD TO ENTER

OPEN TO PHILIPPINE RESIDENTS ONLY (International if you're willing to help w/ shipping prices)

ENDS JULY 19TH

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Leave me a comment below if you are going to Alyson Noel's signing so we can meet up! I'd love to meet fellow Filipino readers. Or if you just want to say hi, I'm okay with that too! Comments will not count as entries, but it's appreciated.

ARC Review: Fated (Soul Seekers #1) by Alyson Noel

I had high hopes for this book, as this is Alyson Noel's new series. It was good enough to at least make me interested.

Title: Fated (Soul Seekers, #1) by Alyson Noel
Pages: 306
Release Date: May 22nd 2012
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Source: Publisher
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary:

Lately strange things have been happening to Daire Santos. Animals follow her, crows mock her, and glowing people appear out of nowhere. Worried that Daire is having a nervous breakdown, her mother packs her off to stay in the dusty plains of Enchantment, New Mexico with a grandmother she’s never met.

There she crosses paths with Dace, a gorgeous guy with unearthly blue eyes who she’s encountered before...but only in her dreams. And she’ll get to know her grandmother—a woman who recognizes Daire’s bizarre episodes for what they are. A call to her true destiny as a Soul Seeker, one who can navigate between the worlds of the living and the dead. Her grandmother immediately begins teaching her to harness her powers—but it’s an art that must be mastered quickly. Because Dace’s brother is an evil shape-shifter who’s out to steal her powers. Now Daire must embrace her fate as a Soul Seeker and find out if Dace is one guy she’s meant to be with...or if he’s allied with the enemy she’s destined to destroy.

Life started to take a turn for the worse when Daire had a weird episode in Morocco. Traveling with her mother who was a make-up artist, Daire has spent most of her life alone, and then she suddenly started having visions that don't make sense. The public thinks she's crazy, and just when she needed help the most, a grandmother she didn't know about appeared, offering to help her know more about her dreams and how she can get her sanity back. But Daire was not losing her mind, instead she found herself facing something greater than just losing grip with her reality. She might need to save the world

I will be honest and say that I was a bit underwhelmed. I struggled with a lot of things in this book, and the first was with Daire. I find it easier to read books if the characters are agreeable and relatable, especially the leads. It was hard to like Daire and connect with her. There was little about her that I liked. She was rude, judgmental, mocking and stubborn. Something about her personality just rubs off the wrong way. If you can't connect with the characters, how will you expect the readers to enjoy the story? But Daire redeemed herself a little bit in her quest to embrace her Fate, that she's a Seeker. The dialogues also felt a little jumpy, but I did like the moments of spunk Daire and her friend Sochee have in their moments together.

The twins, Cade and Dace lend the book the intriguing edge it needs. One was evil, one was kind. One was dark, one was light. They were destined to do different things. These blue eyed, dark haired brothers were polar opposites, and they both coax different reactions from Daire. It was quite amusing to see Daire respond to the brothers, one of the redeeming factors of the book, if I may say so.

The typical high school drama is there, and for me, it was a little bit expected. The queen bees and the rebels were present, the standard friend who is as unique as Daire, even the angst and the sting of being a loner. They were a bit cliche and predictable. Lita and the rest of her friends are exactly what you expect popular girls should be, mean, territorial and pretty. Also, the inclusion of mystical characters like The Bone Keeper, the traditions of the day of the dead, and a few other elements that could have made a solid foundation of the story if only there were more time to introduce them well to the readers.

What some of the characters lack, the richness of Alyson Noel's writing highlighted the mystical and intriguing appeal of the Navajo culture and all of the related lore wrapped in Paloma's long and detailed history, of shamans, spirit animals, communing with one's spirit and a myriad of practices and influences were fascinating enough to hold a reader's attention. It was one of the good aspects of the book, a great setting and a great description of what Daire can see and feel.

I was looking for something that will make me say 'wow', because the book held a lot of promise but if there was, I did not quite feel it. There were moments of great intrigue and tension but readers had to get through the first 100 pages to get into it. The pace is pretty slow at the start as Alyson Noel's descriptions of Daire's heritage will give the readers information overload, but all of it is needed to further understand what Fated is all about. I hope in the next book we see more of the potential of the characters brought out and I wish for more heart stopping scenes like what the last 50 pages of the book has. It was a steady read until the sudden tension towards the end pushed the story forward and left the readers with quite a few questions leading to the sequel and a satisfying ending.

Overall, it was quite a decent start for a new series. Although I did struggle reading at times, the reading experience as a whole is good!

My rating

Content (plot, story flow, character):

More, please. This book needs a lot more spark and conflict than what it already has. I hope it improves in the sequel. I am willing to give this a chance!

Okay: Liked, but The Goddess demands more!

Book Cover:
You know what to expect in the book (the rich background!) just by looking at this cover.

Review: Evermore (Immortals #1) by Alyson Noel

I will be honest in this review. It took me quite a while to finish this book, a month actually. I'm not sure if that says something about the book, but I did love it quite a bit.

Title: Evermore (Immortals #1) by Alyson Noel
Pages: 356
Release Date: October 2nd 2009
Published by: Macmillan
Source: Publisher (thanks Hattie, you're awesome!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary (from Goodreads):

Sixteen-year-old Ever Bloom is the sole survivor of a car accident that killed her family. Exiled to sunny California. Ever is haunted by her little sister and by the ability to see people's auras, hear their thoughts and know their entire life story by touching them. She wants to hide from the world, but when a stunningly handsome guy arrives at school, she can't seem to keep away. Falling in love with Damen is dangerous - he's not what he seems. But if Damen is her destiny, how can Ever walk away?

Ever's life changed when her family died in a car accident. She should've died too, but instead she woke up one day in the hospital, broken and with powers she never had before. She used to be normal, and she'd give anything to be normal again. Then she meets Damen, and somehow he looks familiar. But Damen's keeping secrets. Dangerous ones that might have dire consequences even for Ever.

It might be because I have read the spin-off series focusing on Ever's sister, Riley, before reading this, which is why I have a different, or more like backwards perspective on this book that affected my reading in two ways. One, is I'm piecing together parts of the story the other way around, and two, I was understanding the story in the opposite order. I think it made the reading experience a bit unique, and I loved it. It's a different way to enjoy this series and it wasn't as confusing as I thought it would be.

It wasn't easy to like Ever as a character. She's a tortured teenager who spends all her living days blaming herself for the loss of her parents and little sister. It doesn't help that she also has developed the power to read minds with a single touch and see auras. Or maybe she's just really misunderstood? Her peers at school sure doesn't help her improve her personality. But I think she retained that little bit of real factor, even with her downward descent to alcohol addiction. I couldn't say she's a model character, but what Ever went through, a lot of teens would learn a lot of lessons from it. At least she had the courage to change and realize that she wasn't alone. I do think the powers Ever gained made her a lot more interesting character than without it.

I have a lot of questions regarding Damen. A lot, which I think were deliberately left unanswered in this book as this is the first in a series. I still haven't formed much of an opinion about Damen because he was, and is still, an enigma. There wasn't much to think of even with the revelation of what he was. I did, however, like how his character make readers think, especially at the start, if he really is an enemy or the hero in the story.

Riley is an adorable character! I think she became more lovable and gave her character more spark. She's the typical little sister, naughty, a blabber mouth, and always tends to irritate her older sister. But she was the one person who got Ever through the difficult times, and she's just this little girl who is like a big ball of excitement. She makes Ever's gloomy character a little bit brighter.

Plot wise, it feels a little bit like the author tried to build up the mystery behind Damen and Ever's situation too much, holding out the last minute and deciding to bring out the answers to some (not all) of the questions a bit too late into the book. More than half of it was spent trying to shroud Damen's identity, which I think readers already knew even before they're halfway through. But I think what made up for that was the chemistry between Ever and Damen. There were a lot of intense moments that readers couldn't help but look forward to, and even though their relationship is still a bit shaky and new, it's worth trying to wait and see where it takes them.

Also, I think the meaning behind the Tulips is very romantic. The tulip was definitely a significant part of the story, and I like how it's prominently featured in the cover.

I hope the books get better as the series progresses, but Evermore is quite an interesting start in a series. I will give this book a chance because there's definitely a lot more room for growth, character wise and plot wise. I'm pretty sure it will get more intense in later books!

Give it a try and tell me what you think!

My rating

Content (plot, story flow, character):

.5
Okay: Liked, but The Goddess demands more!

Book Cover:

I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

ARC Review: Radiance by Alyson Noel

Again, Louisse, I can't thank you enough for giving me the ARC. You know I love you, right? ^^

Title: Radiance
Author: Alyson Noel
Pages: 192

Summary:

Riley Bloom left her sister, Ever, in the world of the living and crossed the bridge into the afterlife—a place called Here, where time is always Now. Riley and her dog, Buttercup, have been reunited with her parents and are just settling into a nice, relaxing death when she's summoned before The Council. They let her in on a secret—the afterlife isn't just an eternity of leisure; Riley has to work. She's been assigned a job, Soul Catcher, and a teacher, Bodhi, a curious boy she can't quite figure out.

Riley, Bodhi, and Buttercup return to earth for her first assignment, a Radiant Boy who's been haunting a castle in England for centuries. Many Soul Catchers have tried to get him to cross the bridge and failed. But he's never met Riley...

What happens after we die?

The premise, to me, was attractive and intriguing. I have to admit that if there are references in this book about the Evermore series, I am not aware of it since I haven't read any of Alyson Noel's other works. But this book held my interest enough to make me decide to read the Evermore series. Now that I know the story behind Riley's death, I wanted to know how Ever is coping with her loss.

Riley died at the young age of twelve, and has "crossed over". She was stuck in Here and Now.

The concept was very interesting. What if everything was exactly the same thing on the other side? You have the same house, you live in the same neighborhood, you're still, well, you. What do you do?

Riley's attempt to continue her life on the other side is a very nice read. I got the vibe that she's a spoiled kid, a brat. Riley thinks it was unfair that her life was cut short, but when it came for her to know what she is to do in the afterlife, Riley had a pretty big dose of reality given to her. Through her own eyes, she found out how she was when she was alive.

Her persistence was a very handy tool when she was assigned the job of being a "soul catcher", a fact that her guide, Bodhi, the dorky guy slash almost pro skater boy slash Zac Efron of the dead, doesn't like. Despite her obvious flaws when she was living, Riley was able to understand more of her life when she was dead.

I was going to give this book three butterflies, because despite the attractive plot, I couldn't connect much with the story. The writing is okay, but it felt like something was lacking. However, the ending redeemed it for me, so I am rating this 4. I like the realization that Riley came to. Yes, she's dead, but that doesn't mean she can't do anything anymore. She can guide souls to the other side. She has a purpose. Those in the earth plane, the living, might not see her anymore, might forget her eventually, but she still has something to "live" for.

This has a potential to be a good series. There was a sneak peek for the 2nd book, and I hope Radiance picks up the pace and entice the readers more. The last two pages sure is a cliff hanger.

Rating:


Shining: Worthy of a Goddess' Love!

Book Cover:

I very much like the book cover! You can see the bridge, and a lovely field spread out before Riley and Buttercup. It has a very ethereal feel to it, which is, of course, what most people thinks Heaven is like. Very appropriate cover to convey the "radiance" message. Great job, book cover designer!

Yes - The Goddess Approves!