Book Review of Paperglass by A.R. Ivanovich

Goodreads Summary: Surviving a narrow brush with death convinced Katelyn Kestrel that she must never return to the war-torn Outside World. Safe again within the sanctuary of Haven Valley, she has forced herself to forget Rune Thayer, the young Dragoon soldier who had sacrificed everything to save her.
Katelyn’s struggle to adapt to a peaceful life is undone when she is assaulted by a classmate, triggering her powers with devastating consequences. The authorities learn of her rare Abilities, and a web of troubling mysteries unravels around her. She finds that an unfortunate twist of fate has delivered Haven prisoners to the Prince of Shadows, and he will stop at nothing to discover the valley’s secret location. Katelyn must find and rescue the captives or witness the destruction of everything she has ever loved.
Goodreads Rating: 4.15 stars with just over 1,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Fantasy, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Steampunk
Goodreads Challenge: 4/50
2019 Reading Challenge: #2 Read a YA Fiction (See the full challenge here.)
My Reviews on the city: Haven

Review:

So, I did a little rearranging on my challenge. I realized that Haven, the first book in the series, has a Tree on the cover. So, Haven is now taking up #58 so that I don't have to find another tree book. This also will save me some free spaces when I finish the series. Is it cheating? Maybe. Do I care? Not really.

I felt that Haven moved really slow when I read it, but Paperglass moved quickly. It takes place several months after Haven when Katelyn is trying to regain a sense of normalcy. I liked the pace set in Paperglass. Since I was already familiar with the characters and the scene, it was easy to get into.  I think where Haven is more of getting into the characters and the world, Paperglass gets into the history and the political structure. I really appreciate the steampunk details in both Haven and Paperglass. However, there's quite a bit more of it Paperglass. The world really starts to feel like what I would imagine a steampunk world to be like.

I really enjoyed that Katelyn and Dylan were forced into working together. The lack of trust they have for each other really shows, and I liked the dynamic it caused in the story. I actually thought a lot of their interactions were comical. I thought Sterling's inclusion was interesting as well. I'm really hoping that's his name because I'm drawing a blank at the moment. Anyways he was sort of a love/hate character for me. His earlier actions made me hate him, but his later actions made me love him. Rune was fairly neutral for me in this book. I'm excited to see where his story with Katelyn goes.

I think what I enjoyed most about Paperglass is the details. I mentioned it briefly earlier, but I really liked the world building in this book. It got into the background stories about the powers, especially within Haven and how they've been kept a secret. I liked the mystery behind how people got their information about the outside world. I thought it was a fascinating story development. I definitely can't wait to read the next book in the series. This is easily one of the better Steampunk worlds I've read. 

If you want a good fantasy that's not a massively huge book, I definitely recommend this. Haven builds slow, but the pace in Paperglass is really fast and action-packed. The characters are enjoyable and have a nice depth to them, but the world-building  details are where it's at.

Book Review of Haven by A.R. Ivanovich

Goodreads Summary: From missing socks to missing people, nothing could remain hidden from seventeen-year-old Katelyn Kestrel for long, but after locating a forbidden passage out of her isolated country, Haven, she discovers for the first time that there are some things that should never be found. Outside the safety of her homeland's borders, Katelyn meets Rune, a young soldier who will die without her immediate aid. She never considered that helping him would lead to her capture. While being held prisoner by the handsome Lord Dylan Axton, she learns that the outside world is rife with war and controlled by people with extraordinary powers. It becomes clear that there was a very good reason the founders of Haven locked their people away from the rest of the world. The depth of her peril reaches a fever pitch when a ruthless Commander wants Katelyn dead. Her only hope is to return to Haven, but can she survive long enough to find her home?
Goodreads Ratings: 3.89 stars with over 2200 ratings
Genre Listing: Fantasy, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Steampunk, Dystopian
Goodreads Challenge: 3/50
2019 Reading Challenge: #2.) Read a YA Fiction (find the full challenge here)

Book Review

Woohoo! Book three of the year is complete! For those of you wondering what order I'm doing the 2019 challenge that Tress and I created, I'm kind of just going at it with reckless abandon. I have a hard time deciding what I'm going to read ahead of time. I kind of just go with what sounds interesting at the moment. I am trying to be a little more structured about it this year, as opposed to 2018 and have an idea of what category I want to try and cross off when I go looking for a book.

Given that YA Fiction is my go-to genre for reading, I figured this would be an easy category to get out of the way. Enter Haven, an odd series on Kindle Unlimited that caught my attention. At first, Haven felt kind of familiar in a generic sort of way. I knew I hadn't read the story before, but I felt like I had. It starts with Katelyn's life in Haven and how they'd been isolated for 750 years. It doesn't really go into why just kind of a blanket that's the way it is and no one leaves. It was interesting enough, but the beginning of the story didn't wow me. I kept feeling like it was familiar and a little generic. My brain sometimes oddly associates things, and when I was reading it, I couldn't stop thinking about the later seasons of the show The 100. Once Katelyn reaches the outside world, and these different towns and kingdoms are fighting. That combined with the abilities aspect of the story made it feel like a druid-esq version of the show.

Somewhere around 150-200 pages in, the pace of the book changed for me. It started to really pick up, and I got really interested in the story. I think it was around the time that Katelyn began to really get into with her abilities. I really like how defiant Katelyn was and how she tried to cover things with humor. I always felt sketched out by Dylan even from the beginning of his appearance. He seemed like he was trying too hard to win Katelyn over. It just didn't seem natural. Not to give too much away, but I feel like a show of cowardice is almost worse than what the villain usually does. I liked Rune and Katelyn's connection with him. I kind of felt like their abilities matched each other. I liked the struggle that Rune showed with having to be an isolated Dragoon as well as being a person.

I really enjoyed the world building that was presented in Haven. I thought that A.R Ivanovich did an excellent job of really keeping Haven and the outside world separate. Haven was very much isolated by the Mountains, and even though it was a steampunk world it definitely felt more relatable and "normal" of the two. Haven was very community oriented, and everything was for the good of the people, but there were houses and families, jobs and school, and teenagers being dicks to one another. The outside world is completely different and felt like the warzone that it is. The outside seemed a lot more steampunk and pieced together. I pictured it dingy and dirty with things just being built out of what was laying around. Given the steampunk theme, I thought the idea of commanders losing their humanity and having it replaced with metal was interesting and creepy.

I loved the idea of the lurchers and the little shadow creatures. I thought they were both creative and were nice touches to the world. The little shadow creatures sound adorable, and the way they were described as wearing the abilities made me picture Pascal from Tangled as a shadow wearing electricity as clothes. I really wasn't kidding when I said my brain makes weird associations, by the way. I'm going to blame insomnia, but it's probably just the fact that I'm weird.

I would say that if you are looking for a good steampunk fantasy with a lot of interesting world-building details, this is a good option. It's under 400 pages, so it's not particularly daunting, but if you need to be drawn into the story right away, it may be a challenge. It's an interesting story, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it starts out relatively slow. It's worth giving it a chance though. As soon as I finished Haven last night I downloaded the second book because that's kind of my thing with series.

Book Review of The Master Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Goodreads Summary: Throughout her studies, Ceony Twill has harbored a secret, one she’s kept from even her mentor, Emery Thane. She’s discovered how to practice forms of magic other than her own — an ability long thought impossible.
While all seems set for Ceony to complete her apprenticeship and pass her upcoming final magician’s exam, life quickly becomes complicated. To avoid favoritism, Emery sends her to another paper magician for testing, a Folder who despises Emery and cares even less for his apprentice. To make matters worse, a murderous criminal from Ceony’s past escapes imprisonment. Now she must track the power-hungry convict across England before he can take his revenge. With her life and loved ones hanging in the balance, Ceony must face a criminal who wields the one magic that she does not, and it may prove more powerful than all her skills combined.

Goodreads Rating: 3.78 stars with over 4,000 ratings

Genre Listing: Fantasy, Young Adult, Magic, Magicians, Steampunk, Romance

Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
My other reviews for CHarlie N. Holmberg's books: The Glass Magician, The Paper Magician

Review:

Edited: 12/1/2016

The Master Magician is the final book in the Paper Magician Trilogy. I must say that I'm glad it is a trilogy and not going to be an endless series. I think I would probably tire of it rather quickly if it were a series. This one has a very sweet ending that I found fitting for the story. I don't think that this was the best book in the trilogy, though. I'll give that nod to The Glass Magician. I'm not sure if I would put this above or below The Paper Magician.

Throughout the series, I enjoyed that Ceony took things into her hands. She didn't wait around to be saved. The Master Magician was no different in that regard. While there was a decent amount of action, I feel like there was considerably less action than in the other books. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, as things happened when they needed to. I just felt the better part of this book was her studying for her exam for her Magicianship.

I feel that The Master Magician was a lot more predictable than the other two books. I wasn't surprised by anything that happened in the story. It would have been nice to have a few surprises here and there. With the way The Glass Magician ended, it's no surprise that Ceony tried to learn other skills. The spells were what amazed me in the other book. Aside from the spell she used to decorate for the party, I don't think I was enamored with them as I previously was.

While I feel that The Master Magician fell short, it did what it was supposed to do and ended the story, but there just felt like so much was missing from it. It was missing a certain humor to it, and just wasn't as whimsical as the rest of the series. It felt dry. Maybe this is because I keep comparing it to The Glass Magician, but I just wasn't as entertained by it.

Book Review of The Glass Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Goodreads Summary: Three months after returning Magician Emery Thane’s heart to his body, Ceony Twill is well on her way to becoming a Folder. Unfortunately, not all of Ceony’s thoughts have been focused on paper magic. Though she was promised romance by a fortuity box, Ceony still hasn’t broken the teacher-student barrier with Emery, despite their growing closeness.
When a magician with a penchant for revenge believes that Ceony possesses a secret, he vows to discover it…even if it tears apart the very fabric of their magical world. After a series of attacks target Ceony and catch those she holds most dear in the crossfire, Ceony knows she must find the true limits of her powers…and keep her knowledge from falling into wayward hands.

The delightful sequel to Charlie N. Holmberg’s The Paper Magician, The Glass Magician will charm readers young and old alike

Goodreads Rating: 3.85 stars with just over 9,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Magic, Romance, Steampunk, Paranormal
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
My other reviews for Charlie N. Holmberg's books The Paper Magician, The Master Magician

Review:

Edited: 12/1/2016

I haven't read this much in a long time. I wish I could say this level of reading is going to be a returning pattern for me, but it was only because I stayed home from work sick today and can't stand to be bored.

I'm a little surprised at myself for picking this book up. I had read Paper Magician, and while I enjoyed most of it I didn't end up caring for the ending. The trip through the heart was too weird for me, and I think I might have made comments about not picking up any other book in the series. I recently found myself thinking of the book a lot lately and decided to give the Glass Magician a chance.

I'm glad that I gave this series a second chance. The magic in this book is really (excuse the pun) enchanting and whimsical. I could follow the plot a lot better in this story because it didn't involve any weird trips through someone's heart. The plot seemed logical, and I like the dynamic that has grown between Ceony and Emery.

I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but I think I could just read about the spells performed and be happy. That's my favorite part of this series. I find them incredibly imaginative. I liked that Holmberg gave us a little sneak peek into Emery's mind. I don't remember if that happened in Paper Magician or not, but it was a nice addition to this part of the story.

I think that now that I'm over my issues with Paper Magician I'll probably continue reading this story. I'm glad that I gave it a second chance. Glass Magician is a nice light and quick read with a lot of imagination.

Book Review of The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Goodreads Summary: Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic…forever.
Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined—animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.
An Excisioner—a practitioner of dark, flesh magic—invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.
From the imaginative mind of debut author Charlie N. Holmberg, The Paper Magician is an extraordinary adventure both dark and whimsical that will delight readers of all ages.

Goodreads Ratings: 3.57 stars with over 10,000 ratings

Genre Listing: Fantasy, Young Adult, Magic, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, Steampunk, Paranormal

Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
My other reviews for Charlie N. Holmberg's Books: The Glass Magician, The Master Magician

Review:

Edited: 12/1/2016

I try to write thorough reviews, but this is not going to be one of them. I started The Paper Magician a few days ago and am just now finishing it. If I'm perfectly honest, I only finished it because I skimmed through the last few chapters. This book was just not for me.

For me, this book started out slow. Early on I felt like I was missing some key piece of information. I'm not sure what information I needed, but I never really got it. Once Ceony started learning her craft, it got a little more interesting. I thought that all of the animation spells were enchanting.

Eventually, the spells got old, and I found myself wishing for more action. I guess I got more action, but I honestly have no clue what happened. It went from slightly slow and tedious to weird. Because there wasn't a gradual change I was left confused. The later half of the book Ceony is stuck in Thane's heart, which brought me back to the feeling like I was missing some vital information. I ended up losing interest because I was just so confused. I had to force myself to finish this book, and as soon as I read the words on the page, they left my brain. I probably won't be reading the other two books in the series.  Based on the ratings a lot of people seem to like it, but it's just not for me.

Two out of five moons

Book Review of Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel

Goodreads Summary: Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?
The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.
But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.
In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

Goodreads rating: 3.87 stars from 6,600 ratings
Genres: Science Fiction, Steampunk, Horror, Zombies, Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy, Paranormal, Dystopia
Get the book: Amazon, Book Depository

Review:

Edited 11/24/2016 

I'll be honest, I wasn't sure how a Steampunk Zombie world was going to work out, but I was impressed. I was worried that the combination of Zombies, romance, and Victorian Steampunk themes would become tedious to read. Lia Habel made these ideas work well together. 

The story follows Nora, a student at an all girl's academy, but instead of being interested in what all of the other girls at the academy are interested in, Nora is interested in History.  She is always going over her father's old war documents and films. This leads us as readers to being allowed a lot of history about Nora's world, why things are the way they are, and we get to know Nora and her friend Pamela. 

Nora's life is forever changed when she's kidnapped by Zombies. In this Steampunk Victorian world, there are several levels of Zombies. The ones that have captured Nora are at the highest level, where they've kept their humanity. During this kidnapping, we're introduced to Bram, who has made it his mission to protect Nora.

Lia Habel provides a lot of amazing details for the world she's created and even includes some sense of humor. The only thing that bothered me is that each chapter is from a different character's point of view. For most of the book the character switch isn't bad, but towards the end, it makes things confusing. I had to read some chapters multiple times because of it. I enjoyed the story, however, and look forward to reading Dearly, Beloved.

Four out of Five Moons

Book Review of The Rithmatists by Brandon Sanderson

Goodreads Summary: "More than anything, Joel wants to be a Rithmatist. Chosen by the Master in a mysterious inception ceremony, Rithmatists have the power to infuse life into two-dimensional figures known as Chalklings. Rithmatists are humanity’s only defense against the Wild Chalklings — merciless creatures that leave mangled corpses in their wake. Having nearly overrun the territory of Nebrask, the Wild Chalklings now threaten all of the American Isles.

As the son of a lowly chalkmaker at Armedius Academy, Joel can only watch as Rithmatist students study the magical art that he would do anything to practice. Then students start disappearing — kidnapped from their rooms at night, leaving trails of blood. Assigned to help the professor who is investigating the crimes, Joel, and his friend Melody find themselves on the trail of an unexpected discovery — one that will change Rithmatics — and their world — forever.

Bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings his unique brand of epic storytelling to the teen audience with an engrossing tale of danger and suspense—the first of a series. With his trademark skills in world-building, Sanderson has created a magic system that is so inventive and detailed that that readers who appreciate games of strategy and tactics just may want to bring Rithmatics to life in our world."
Goodreads Rating: 4.25 stars and over 11,000 ratings
Genre listings: Fantasy, Young Adult, Science Fiction/, Steampunk, Mystery, Magic
Get the book: Amazon, Book Depository

Review:

Edited 11/24/2016

This is the first and only of Brandon Sanderson's books that I've read. I should probably remedy that.  I found this gem on one of the bargain shelves at a bookstore for under five dollars. I'm a big fan of deals!
I highly recommend the Rithmatist to anyone who enjoys weird things. This is a cute young adult story about a boy named Joel, who wants to be a Rithmatist. Unfortunately, the Rithmatist are elite mathematician warriors who use the principles of geometry to draw shapes. When these shapes are illustrated in chalk and have Rithmatic properties, they become alive and are called Chalklings. These creatures can execute tasks such as defending and attacking, which is useful against wild Chalklings.
The thing I liked most about Joel is he's just an average kid. He doesn't fit in because he's not rich or a Rithmatist. He doesn't have any special powers, and what makes him great is he works hard, practices his skills, and uses his knowledge of Rithmatists.
Melody was annoying at first, but she grew on me. There are reasons for her behavior, and she ends up being super quirky and a lot of fun. Plus, she pushes Joel to do better.
I enjoyed that this book contained drawings of all the chalklings. Throughout the chapter, and at the end there's a new picture of the little creatures.  This book had a lot of details, which I enjoyed. Anytime I had a question about what I was reading; it was eventually answered in snippets.  Everything was tied up nicely, but still left room for the story to expand.
My only negative about this book is that I would have liked more details on the steampunk gadgetry. It's not described much, but then again it's not an essential part of the story. It just would have let me imagine things a little better.

Five out of Five Moons