The Book Kiwi- Waiting on Wednesday

It's actually Thursday here in New Zealand but everyone else's post go up today and I completely forgot yesterday so…. Waiting on Thursday??? Anyway this is a weekly post about what book/s you are eagerly waiting on and it is hosted over at Breaking The Spine

The Jewel by Amy E Wing 

Expected Release Date - September 2nd 2014 

The Jewel means wealth. The Jewel means beauty. The Jewel means royalty. But for girls like Violet, the Jewel means servitude. Not just any kind of servitude. Violet, born and raised in the Marsh, has been trained as a surrogate for the royalty––because in the Jewel the only thing more important than opulence is offspring.

Purchased at the surrogacy auction by the Duchess of the Lake and greeted with a slap to the face, Violet (now known only as #197) quickly learns of the brutal truths that lie beneath the Jewel’s glittering facade: the cruelty, backstabbing, and hidden violence that have become the royal way of life.

Violet must accept the ugly realities of her existence . . . and try to stay alive. But then a forbidden romance erupts between Violet and a handsome gentleman hired as a companion to the Duchess’s petulant niece. Though his presence makes life in the Jewel a bit brighter, the consequences of their illicit relationship will cost them both more than they bargained for.

The Book Kiwi Reviews - The Juliette Chronicles Trilogy by Tahereh Mafi

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

Genre- Dystopian Books in Order-  #1 Shatter Me #2 Unravel Me #3 Ignite Me 

Novellas (MUST READ!!)- #1.5 Destroy Me #2.5 Fracture Me 

Today I have a series review on The Juliette Chronicles aka The Shatter Me trilogy. The last book came out in February and since then I kept hearing amazing things about this series so I had to jump on the bandwagon. I had picked up the first book a couple months back when I saw it was only $4 dollars so I had no excuse not to start. The other two were pretty cheap on kindle and considering I despise the ugly Australian/NZ covers of this series I quickly brought them and decided I would marathon the entire trilogy. These books are very popular so I had very high expectations and I was little bit let down after reading Shatter Me, I enjoyed it but not as much as I thought I would. I was hesitant to carry on and was thinking about starting a completely new book but I thought I would give it another chance and decided to pick up Destroy Me which is the novella that comes after Shatter Me. And that is when I fell in love! I was hooked and flew through the rest of the series. From the start I loved the writing style and fell more in love with it as the series continued. The writing is so beautiful and Tahereh Mafi has definitely jumped to the top of my favourite authors list. Each book is better than the last and the final book is the perfect ending. I don't want to give away any spoilers but I will say the romance in this series is surprising and so so good, I'm in love.This series is very much character driven which I enjoyed a lot, I loved seeing the characters develop. I'm guessing you have probably already read this series as I'm sure I was one of the last to hop on the Shatter Me train but if you haven't you need to get to it immediately. I completely recommend it if your looking for a good dystopian/character development/romance series, it was so good. 

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.

In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.” 

“I'm oxygen and he's dying to breathe.” 

“And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose.” 

“I want you,” he says. He says “I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching your breath and aching for me like I ache for you.”

I  could quote the entire series but I will stop now before it gets too spoilery, just go pick yourself up a copy of Shatter Me. 

The Book Kiwi Reviews - Bright Before Sunrise by Tiffany Schmidt

One night can change how you see the world. One night can change how you see yourself.

When Jonah is forced to move from Hamilton to Cross Pointe for the second half of his senior year, "miserable" doesn't even begin to cover it. He feels like the doggy-bag from his mother's first marriage and everything else about her new life—with a new husband, new home and a new baby—is an upgrade. The people at Cross Pointe High School are pretentious and privileged—and worst of all is Brighton Waterford, the embodiment of all things superficial and popular. Jonah’s girlfriend, Carly, is his last tie to what feels real... until she breaks up with him. 

For Brighton, every day is a gauntlet of demands and expectations. Since her father died, she’s relied on one coping method: smile big and pretend to be fine. It may have kept her family together, but she has no clue how to handle how she's really feeling. Today is the anniversary of his death and cracks are beginning to show. The last thing she needs is the new kid telling her how much he dislikes her for no reason she can understand. She's determined to change his mind, and when they're stuck together for the night, she finally gets her chance. 

Jonah hates her at 3p.m., but how will he feel at 3 a.m.? 

One night can change how you see the world. One night can change how you see yourself.

Genre- YA Contemporary Pages- 288 Read- Kindle edition 

I had planned to review the Shatter Me trilogy for my first review but I have a lot of feels about that trilogy that its going to take a little time to write them all down so I thought I would go with Bright Before Sunrise which I just so happened to finish yesterday afternoon. And I LOVED it! I was looking for something light and fluffy after marathoning the Shatter Me trilogy and thought this sounded just like what i needed. It's a story that takes place during one night between the popular good girl who doesn't want to hurt anyones feelings and the new bad boy who is counting down the days until he can escape his new life in Cross Pointe. I really enjoyed this book and the more I think about it, the more I like it. It was a bit slow at the beginning for me but I don't know if that is just because I couldn't find the time to sit and enjoy it but after about one hundred pages I was hooked. The story is told during one night which I absolutely love and it also has alternating POV which is another thing I love.  It was very realistic I thought and I really did enjoy the characters and related a little to Brighton. The romance was cute and I loved how it developed and that we got to see it from both POV. Oh and the chapter titles are awesome, "Between Half-Past Exhaustion and a Quarter Past Lust."  This book does touch on grief a bit and dealing with change but I liked the way it was written and how it balanced everything out. I definitely recommend it if your looking for a fun read and lets be honest, who doesn't like a book that takes place during one night? I mean all the adventure and romance and eating at late night diners and going to parks? Its pretty hard to resist and this book has all that! 

"His face is naked of all emotion. His eyes scream of need. My instincts demand I look away. Run away. I don't want to be needed. Not like this. Not in a way that requires me to share more than space and conversation - a way that requires me to share me."

Hello????

So I don't know if anyone will read this but I'm just going to pretend there is someone reading this…okay? So my name is April and I'm 20 years old and I live in a little country called New Zealand. I currently work on a dairy farm with my family but I hope to be running my own cafe one day. When ever I get free time I can be found with my nose in a book or buying far too much nail polish online. I've had so many blogs that I have lost count and my most successful ( *coug* 7 followers *cough*) blog was a book blog that I started a few years ago. I didn't keep up with it easily as I put too much pressure on myself to read so I would have reviews to put up, after only a couple months I had unintentionally given up. I came back to the blog this morning and realised how much I missed it. My reviews were never spectacular but I loved giving my thoughts on the book and the interaction in the comments so I decided to start fresh. New blog, new name and a whole bunch of new reviews. I can't say my reviews have improved much but hopefully in time they will. I prefer YA books but I'm starting to slowly gravitate towards adult books recently so it will definitely be a mix of both but if I'm being truly honest, it will most likely be YA heavy. I can't promise how often I will update but I aim to at least post twice a week. I have a couple months before calving starts so I will hopefully be in the swing of things before then. So lets see how this goes…