Flailage: Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

Title: Dreams of Gods and Monsters (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #3)
Author: Laini Taylor
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Fantasy
Release Date: 8 April, 2014 (US); 17 April, 2014 (UK)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her, if there can even be a future for the chimaera in war-ravaged Eretz.

Common enemy, common cause.

When Jael's brutal seraph army trespasses into the human world, the unthinkable becomes essential, and Karou and Akiva must ally their enemy armies against the threat. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people.

And, perhaps, for themselves. Toward a new way of living, and maybe even love.

But there are bigger threats than Jael in the offing. A vicious queen is hunting Akiva, and, in the skies of Eretz ... something is happening. Massive stains are spreading like bruises from horizon to horizon; the great winged stormhunters are gathering as if summoned, ceaselessly circling, and a deep sense of wrong pervades the world.

What power can bruise the sky?

From the streets of Rome to the caves of the Kirin and beyond, humans, chimaera and seraphim will fight, strive, love, and die in an epic theater that transcends good and evil, right and wrong, friend and enemy.

At the very barriers of space and time, what do gods and monsters dream of? And does anything else matter?

Review by Nara

Reading Update (28/3/13)

Well, about a month has gone by since my last update. I really shouldn't leave these this long, but I thought I'd read less once the uni term began. Guess not lol. #procrastinationFTW

Review: Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell

Title: Dear Killer
Author: Katherine Ewell
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Thriller
Release Date: 1 April, 2014
Source: HarperTeen via Edelweiss

Average Goodreads rating: 3.41 out of 5.00 (140+ ratings)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

Rule One—Nothing is right, nothing is wrong.
Rule Two—Be careful.
Rule Three—Fight using your legs whenever possible, because they’re the strongest part of your body. Your arms are the weakest.
Rule Four—Hit to kill. The first blow should be the last, if at all possible.
Rule Five—The letters are the law.

Kit takes her role as London’s notorious “Perfect Killer” seriously. The letters and cash that come to her via a secret mailbox are not a game; choosing who to kill is not an impulse decision. Every letter she receives begins with “Dear Killer,” and every time Kit murders, she leaves a letter with the dead body. Her moral nihilism and thus her murders are a way of life—the only way of life she has ever known.

But when a letter appears in the mailbox that will have the power to topple Kit’s convictions as perfectly as she commits her murders, she must make a decision: follow the only rules she has ever known, or challenge Rule One, and go from there.

Katherine Ewell’s Dear Killer is a sinister psychological thriller that explores the thin line between good and evil, and the messiness of that inevitable moment when life contradicts everything you believe.

Review by Nara

Review: Salvage by Alexandra Duncan

Title: Salvage
Author: Alexandra Duncan
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Release Date: 1 April, 2014
Source: Greenwillow Books via Edelweiss

Average Goodreads rating: 3.93 out of 5.00 (240+ ratings)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

Ava, a teenage girl living aboard the male-dominated deep space merchant ship Parastrata, faces betrayal, banishment, and death. Taking her fate into her own hands, she flees to the Gyre, a floating continent of garbage and scrap in the Pacific Ocean, in this thrilling, surprising, and thought-provoking debut novel that will appeal to fans of Across the Universe, by Beth Revis, and The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood.

Review by Nara

The Search for the Panacea [5]

If you're going "WHAT?! Another book haul vlog, Nara?! But it's only been on week since you posted the last one?", well, that would be because I was super late posting last week's which actually should have gone up sometime early February lol.

Anyway, this is the February book haul, and ermahgerd there are some serious pretties! As always, the book will be listed for those who don't want to watch.

And my bad, the focus was off. I couldn't be screwed re-filming it lol.

Review: Sea of Shadows by Kelley Armstrong

Title: Sea of Shadows
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Genre: Young Adult, High Fantasy, Horror
Release Date: 8 April, 2014
Source: HarperTeen via Edelweiss. Thank you!

Average Goodreads rating: 3.64 out of 5.00 (180+ ratings)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

In the Forest of the Dead, where the empire’s worst criminals are exiled, twin sisters Moria and Ashyn are charged with a dangerous task. For they are the Keeper and the Seeker, and each year they must quiet the enraged souls of the damned.

Only this year, the souls will not be quieted.

Ambushed and separated by an ancient evil, the sisters’ journey to find each other sends them far from the only home they’ve ever known. Accompanied by a stubborn imperial guard and a dashing condemned thief, the girls cross a once-empty wasteland, now filled with reawakened monsters of legend, as they travel to warn the emperor. But a terrible secret awaits them at court—one that will alter the balance of their world forever.

Review by Nara

Review: Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci

Title: Tin Star (Tin Star #1)
Author: Cecil Castellucci
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Source: Macmillan via NetGalley

Average Goodreads rating: 3.65 out of 5.00 (180+ ratings)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

On their way to start a new life, Tula and her family travel on the Prairie Rose, a colony ship headed to a planet in the outer reaches of the galaxy. All is going well until the ship makes a stop at a remote space station, the Yertina Feray, and the colonist's leader, Brother Blue, beats Tula within an inch of her life. An alien, Heckleck, saves her and teaches her the ways of life on the space station.

When three humans crash land onto the station, Tula's desire for escape becomes irresistible, and her desire for companionship becomes unavoidable. But just as Tula begins to concoct a plan to get off the space station and kill Brother Blue, everything goes awry, and suddenly romance is the farthest thing from her mind.

Review by Nara

The Search for the Panacea [4]

Late yet again! This is actually the book haul for the month of January. I got some pretty awesome books- as always I'll write out a list of books in case you don't want to watch :)

Review: The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J Maas

Title: The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass #0.1-0.5)
Author: Sarah J Maas
Genre: Young Adult, High Fantasy
Source: Bloomsbury Sydney. Thank you!

Average Goodreads rating: 4.55 out of 5.00 (320+ ratings)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

Celaena Sardothien owes her reputation to Arobynn Hamel. He gave her a home at the Assassins' Guild and taught her the skills she needed to survive.

Arobynn's enemies stretch far and wide - from Adarlan's rooftops and its filthy dens, to remote islands and hostile deserts. Celaena is duty-bound to hunt them down. But behind her assignments lies a dark truth that will seal her fate - and cut her heart in two forever.

Review by Nara

Review: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare by M.G. Buehrlen

Title: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare
Author: M.G. Buehrlen
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Fantasy
Release Date: 4 March, 2014
Source: Strange Chemistry via NetGalley. Thank you!

Goodreads rating: 4.14 out of 5.00 (50+ ratings)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

For as long as 17-year-old Alex Wayfare can remember, she has had visions of the past. Visions that make her feel like she’s really on a ship bound for America, living in Jamestown during the Starving Time, or riding the original Ferris wheel at the World’s Fair.

But these brushes with history pull her from her daily life without warning, sometimes leaving her with strange lasting effects and wounds she can’t explain. Trying to excuse away the aftereffects has booked her more time in the principal’s office than in any of her classes and a permanent place at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Alex is desperate to find out what her visions mean and get rid of them.

It isn’t until she meets Porter, a stranger who knows more than should be possible about her, that she learns the truth: Her visions aren’t really visions. Alex is a Descender – capable of traveling back in time by accessing Limbo, the space between Life and Afterlife. Alex is one soul with fifty-six past lives, fifty-six histories.

Fifty-six lifetimes to explore: the prospect is irresistible to Alex, especially when the same mysterious boy with soulful blue eyes keeps showing up in each of them. But the more she descends, the more it becomes apparent that someone doesn’t want Alex to travel again. Ever.

And will stop at nothing to make this life her last.

Review by Nara

Lola Read-Along: Quiz Time!

As evident from the title of this post, QUIZ TIME! Woohoo! So, I assume you've been reading along with us if you're checking out this post (and actually, even if you haven't been reading along but have read Lola before, feel free to try the quiz), and so I've done two editions of the quiz. The "easy" edition (which isn't actually that easy lol. #sorrynotsorry) and the super hard tiny detail edition (dw haha they're not that tiny. I don't think...) Anyway, onto the quizzes!

Lola Read-Along: Book Recommendations

HELLO! I hope you're all enjoying Lola and the Boy Next Door, and if you're thinking, "but Chantelle, what do I read next?" then this post is for you! Although it's near impossible to find you another book with all the eccentricities that make up Lola, I've put together some recommendations that each have an element of Lola in them that you might want more of.

Review: Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Title: Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3)
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Paranormal Fantasy
Source: Allen & Unwin Australia. Thank you!

Goodreads rating: 4.52 out of 5.00 (7,600+ ratings)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

The exciting and chilling conclusion to the internationally successful Juliette Chronicles series. With Omega Point destroyed, Juliette doesn’t know if the rebels are alive. But that won’t keep her from trying to take down The Reestablishment once and for all. Now she must rely on Warner, the handsome commander of Sector 45. The one person she never thought she could trust. He promises to help Juliette master her powers and save their dying world … but that’s not all he wants with her.

Review by Nara

Lola Read-Along: Favourite Quotations

How is everyone going in the read-along? HAVE YOU GOT TO THE SWOONS YET?! If not, keep reading folks. They're coming :D

Anyway, in today's post, I'm going to highlight a few quotes that we like from Lola. There are some non-spoiler ones, but also some more spoilery quotes which we've hidden under a spoiler tag. If you haven't joined the read-along yet, smh. haha kidding. But hopefully we can convince you to grab a copy of this book with the quotes hehe.

Lola Read-Along: AND IT BEGINS

Woooooo! It is now March 3rd, which means the Lola and the Boy Next Door portion of the Stephanie Perkins Read-Along BEGINS! If you haven't yet signed up for the read-along DO ITTT. Click this link here or the button in the sidebar. Also, if you didn't already know, Lola is a companion novel to Anna, so you don't have to have read Anna to read Lola. By which I mean, JOIN USSSSS.

Review: Elusion by Claudia Gabel and Cheryl Klam

Title: Elusion
Author: Claudia Gabel, Cheryl Klam
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Release Date: 18 March, 2014
Source: Katherine Tegen Books via Edelweiss

Goodreads rating: 3.51 out of 5.00 (80+ ratings)
Goodreads | The Reading Room

Soon, Elusion® will change the world and life as we know it.

A new technology called Elusion is sweeping the country. An app, visor and wristband will virtually transport you to an exotic destination where adventure can be pursued without the complications—or consequences—of real life.

Regan is an Elusion insider. Or at least she used to be. Her father invented the program, and her best friend, Patrick, heir to the tech giant Orexis, is about to release it nationwide. But ever since her father’s unexpected death, Regan can’t bear to Escape, especially since waking up from the dream means crashing back to her grim reality.

Still, when there are rumors of trouble in Elusion—accusations that it’s addictive and dangerous— Regan is determined to defend it. But the critics of Elusion come from surprising sources, including Josh, the handsome skeptic with his own personal stakes. As Regan investigates the claims, she discovers a disturbing web of secrets. She will soon have to choose between love and loyalty…a decision that will affect the lives of millions.

Suspense, thrills, and romance fuel this near-future story about the seductive nature of a perfect virtual world, and how far one girl will go to uncover the truth behind the illusions.

Review by Nara

Epic Recs March

I'm sure you've seen this meme around the blogosphere. It's basically where people pair up and recommend books for each other and it's hosted by Books of Amber and Paper Riot. This is the first month that Looking for the Panacea is participating- and we're going to recommend books for each other! Chantelle and I thought it'd be kind of fun if we tried to guess each others' picks (with some hints of course). So here are the results of that- the only thing that can be conclusively said is that Chantelle is crap at giving hints haha. (Chantelle: EXCUSE ME! Nara: :P)