Review for Torn by Amanda Hocking

 **WARNING. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**

Torn is the first book that I read for the Year-A-Thon. If you want to read more about the Year-A-Thon, go to: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/123987-ayearathon

Synopsis: "When Wendy Everly first discovers the truth about herself—that she’s a changeling switched at birth—she knows her life will never be the same. Now she’s about to learn that there’s more to the story…

She shares a closer connection to her Vittra rivals than she ever imagined—and they’ll stop at nothing to lure her to their side. With the threat of war looming, her only hope of saving the Trylle is to master her magical powers—and marry an equally powerful royal. But that means walking away from Finn, her handsome bodyguard who’s strictly off limits…and Loki, a Vittra prince with whom she shares a growing attraction.

Torn between her heart and her people, between love and duty, Wendy must decide her fate. If she makes the wrong choice, she could lose everything, and everybody, she’s ever wanted…in both worlds.

As a special gift to readers, this book contains a new, never-before-published bonus story, “One Day, Three Ways,” set in the magical world of the Trylle."

 

Torn takes off right after Switched ends. She's with her brother, which isn't really her brother. She brought her brother's real brother to meet each other. Her brother that really isn't her brother doesn't trust his real brother. Make sense? No? 

She gets kidnapped by the terrible other troll tribe people. She meets a new guy. Falls in love with him too. Learns secrets. Gets engaged. 

This book was crazy.  

Here are some important parts:

• She got engaged to Tove.
• She found out Tove is gay.
• Matt and Willa are dating.
• Her mother is dieing.
• She found out the leader of her kingdom's enemy is her father.
• She learned she may be partially immortal.
• She was told she would have to kill her own father. 
• She is still a Trylle.
• She's in love with two different guys (neither of which I agree with).

The book seemed quite interesting, however it took me a while to get through it. I found it difficult to grasp what was really going on, since she STILL knows NOTHING about where she came from. Also, Matt (the guy she thought was her brother but isn't) wasn't in the book all that much. And Where was Rhys? He was there at the start of the book, but just disappeared. He was what I loved most about the first one! He was so quirky!

This book wasn't as good as the first one. I give Torn by Amanda Hocking 3 books. I hope the last one gets better.

BoutofBooks Read-A-Thon schedule

I will be participating in the Bout of Books Read-A-Thon! This Read-A-Thon seems to be going from May 12 to May 18. I think I will do better at that than a 24 hour Read-A-Thon so yes!

If you would like to participate as well, go to:

http://boutofbooks.blogspot.com/

The sign-ups are still going on, so make sure you sign up before it ends! Happy reading!

Time Devoted to Reading

I will be reading:

6 hours a day 

12 hours on the weekend 

24 hours (hopefully) all week

My Goals

• Read 1 book a day
• Read more than 3 books
• Read books I haven't read before
• Read 10 books

Books to Read

• Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
• Partials by Dan Wells
• Confessions of a Murder Suspect by James Patterson
• The Maze Runner James Dashner
• Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
• The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff 
• Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo 
• Faerie Wars by Herbie Brennan
• The Space Between by Brenna Yovanoff 
• I Am Number Four by Pitticus Lore

Review for Switched by Amanda Hocking

**WARNING. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**


Switched by Amanda Hocking is the second (and last) full book that I read during the Read-A-Thon. I have read this book before, but I wanted to read the rest of the series so I started with this book first.

Synopsis: "When Wendy Everly was six years old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her. Eleven years later, Wendy discovers her mother might have been right. She's not the person she's always believed herself to be, and her whole life begins to unravel - all because of Finn Holmes.

Finn is a mysterious guy who always seems to be watching her. Every encounter leaves her deeply shaken...though it has more to do with her fierce attraction to him than she'd ever admit. But it isn't long before he reveals the truth: Wendy is a changeling who was switched at birth - and he's come to take her home.

Now Wendy's about to journey to a magical world she never knew existed, on that's both beautiful and frightening. And where she must leave her old life behind to discover who she's meant to become..."

Switched is the first book in the Trylle trilogy, or the tryllogy like I like to call it.

Wendy Everly has always been the outcast of the family. Her hair is darker while her family's is light. She has a bad temper, her hair will never lay down, she eats differently than anyone else, she hates wearing shoes, and she can make people do what she wants when she thinks hard enough.

Her life changes when Finn Holmes comes into her town. He constantly watches her, and he gives her the wrong idea. He's happy and kind one moment, then dripping venom the next. One night he appears at her window and tells her she's a Trylle. That she needs to go home with him. Obviously there are some questions.

A Trylle is a troll, but not the fairytale kind of troll. They look like humans, but their hair doesn't lay down like a normal humans. Some of them have a green tint to their skin, but not all of them. The best part is they all have some sort of power to them.

At first she refuses to go, but as the story goes on she gets attacked by a rival 'clan' (basically) of Trylle and she decides to leave. She finds out that she's the princess, and the only heir to the throne. She doesn't want to become queen, but she has too.

The reason she was with humans is because the Trylle switch the human babies with their Trylle babies. That way, the Trylle can take the child's inheritance fund when they become of age. The human baby is called a mansk in the Trylle world.

She befriends Tove (a very powerful Trylle), Willa (a semi-powerful Trylle), Rhys (a mansk), and Rhiannon (a mansk).

Wendy's mom is a psychic. She doesn't know what she sees, but she paints it. She doesn't know when or where it is going to happen, all she knows is what is in the painting.

She paints a picture of Wendy laying on the floor in glass, and towards the end of the book we find out what that means. There is a war between the rival Trylle clans, and Wendy is in the middle of it. They attack her party, but with the Trylle powers combined they stop their rivals. At least for the end of this book.

At the end, Wendy takes Rhys to meet his actual brother. The brother she thought was hers through the beginning of the book.

I really liked this book, but the second time reading it I started getting bored and noticed I was skipping parts of the book.

I give this book four books

Review for A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford

**WARNING. SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**

A Touch Mortal is the first book that I read for the Read-A-Thon for this month (link to the Read-A-Thon page: http://24hourreadathon.com/ )

A Touch  Mortal by Leah Clifford is a book that I have been waiting to read for a while, and I don't know why I didn't pick it up sooner.

Synopsis: "Eden didn't expect Az. Not his saunter down the beach toward her. Not his unbelievable pick-up line. Not the instant, undeniable connection. And definitely not his wings. Yea. So long, happily-ever-after.

Now, trapped between life and death and cursed to spread chaos with her every touch, Eden is at the center of the eternal struggle between heaven and hell. All because she gave her heart to one of the Fallen, an angel cast out of heaven. She may lose everything she's ever had. She may be betrayed by those she loves most. But Eden will not be a pawn in anyone else's game. Her heart is her own.

And That's only the beginning of the end."

Eden is an outcast everywhere. Probably because of her black and pink hair. Her parents don't care, she has no friends, and she's contemplating suicide. She wants to die. That's all she wants is to die. Then she meets Az and Gabriel. She makes friends with them that summer, but it was probably worse than when she had no friends.

Az and Gabriel (AKA Gabe) are angels. Az is a fallen angel, because he fell in love with a human. Gabe is a messenger of heaven, he is sent down to Earth to report what is happening there. Gabe decides to check Eden's path, basically her reason for being alive. The bad part, is the fact that Eden has no path, she has to die. She is a sider. Siders die, everyone in their life forgets them (except other siders and angels).

One day, Az and Gabriel decide that Eden needs to die before the big bad guy named Luke can get to her and get her to side with the Devil (Luke, Lucifer?). Az jumps off a balcony and fakes his death so Eden would kill herself. It worked.

She learns that she needs to pass her power or she will store too much and hurt herself or something. However, she finds out that she can cause other siders to pass to heaven, AKA she can kill them. She begins to "release" other siders because "they shouldn't have to live like this".

Along the course of the book, Eden moves in with different siders. Adam, Jarrod, and James. They also take in a woman named Libby later in the book. While Eden is looking for siders to release (which didn't show up on her doorstep like usual) James is released by someone else. Eden thought she was the only one with this power.

It is up to Eden to find out what is going on (obviously). So the answer is to go with Libby to see some band. They are invited backstage, and it turns out the singer is Luke.

It turns out he is after her, and he'd do anything to get her on his side.

As time goes on, Eden falls back in love with Az and passes him the touch. Which causes him to feel bad, so he begins to choose the side of Luke. She needs help, so she goes to her friends who have all joined with Luke for no reason at all, but they did. Libby was always on his side, because she is Luke's girlfriend.

There's a crazy battle on a roof. Adam gets killed, Libby can release siders, and Az almost falls completely. Until the biggest bombshell is dropped.

Eden didn't commit suicide. She was MURDERED!!!

 

 

She tells Luke that the siders she releases is sent to heaven, which tells Luke exactly who killed her.

She thinks it was Az, but it was Gabriel!

Gabriel killed her to jumpstart what was happening. But in return all of the siders were being sent to heaven because of him.

The book ends with Gabriel falling and siding with Lucifer to save his friends. However, it isn't over and Lucifer will be back!


Lets list the good and bad things about this book.

Good:

1. The storyline. It was pretty new to me. Not the whole angel part, but the fact that she had to die to get the story started.
2. The characters weren't all whiny and they helped themselves. Most of them anyway.
3. The plot twists were pretty good. I honestly thought it was Az that had killed her, but I didn't expect Gabe.
4. It was a long book (419 pgs.)

Bad:

1. Eden was stupid sometimes. Someone is after her, so she sneaks out to a club. And then someone is after her, she knows who, but she goes out to meet him alone? Everything she did was behind someone's back.
2. It reused the angel storyline. I like angel books, but there are so many of them.
3. Its a long book. For a Read-A-Thon it was a bad choice.
4. A few things missing in the storyline.

Overall, I really liked the book. I felt that there were a few holes in the story, like why do they have to pass the touch? What happens if you don't?

I give A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford 4 books.

The end of Read-a-Thon quiz!

Read-a-Thon is officially over! I'll be honest, I crashed hour 20. However, this was an amazing experience that I will be redoing, and hopefully I will be a little more organized. There is a little quiz for me to do so here we go:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? Hour 20 because I fell asleep.
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? The trylle trilogy by Amanda Hocking, the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, and anything by John Green.
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Maybe do less games that involve a camera?
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? For me or in general? For me, I think just keeping on helped me read the books I did. In general, the community was helpful in assisting everyone.
5. How many books did you read? I read 2 and a half books, or a total of approximately 776 pages.
6. What were the names of the books you read? A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford, Switched by Amanda Hocking, and half of Torn by Amanda Hocking
7. Which book did you enjoy most? I really loved a touch mortal.
8. Which did you enjoy least? Switched, because I've read it before.
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? I am definitely doing this again. I read there's one in October? I would be a reader. It is such a fun experience!

Even though I did not reach my goal of 3 books for the read-a-thon, I feel like I did really good for my first one! I did not go for smaller books (though that may have been my downfall), but I liked the books I did read and that's what matters. I didn't realize how much reading took out of a person! You get exhausted so quickly! I am eagerly waiting for the next one to begin!