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| Gallagher Girls #5 |
Published By: Lothian Children's Books
Rating: 4.5/5
The last thing Cammie Morgan remembers is leaving the Gallagher Academy to protect her friends and family from the Circle of Cavan - an ancient terrorist organisation that has been hunting her for over a year. Then Cammie wakes up in an Alpine convent and discovers that months have passed. Her memory is a black hole, and the only traces of Cammie s summer holiday are the bruises on her body and dirt under her nails. All she wants is to go home, but once she returns to school, Cammie realises that even the Gallagher Academy holds more questions than answers. Now, Cammie, her friends, and mysterious spy-guy Zach will face their most difficult challenge yet. With only their training to guide them, the group must travel to the other side of the world, hoping to piece together the clues that Cammie left behind. But the Circle is hot on their trail and will stop at nothing to prevent Cammie from remembering what she did last summer.
I have been waiting for a long time for this book to be released, so when I got my hands on it I just had to devour it in one day. While I hated the wait, the book was definitely worth it. Ally just has this way of writing that makes you want to read more, she is a master of revealing information at just the right time and in the right amounts that keep you wanting more. Some authors need to take a note out of Ally's book in revealing secrets becuase this is how it should be done.
As always I love the characters in this book, they are all so well thought out and each play their own unique role. I love how this book challenges some of the relationships we've come to know and love, and how despite the challenges Cammie's disappearance and reappearance creates everyone comes out at the end stronger. Ally has really pushed her characters and I love them even more for it. Cammie has become a stronger, more complex character and I'm excited to see where Ally takes her and her new skills in the next book. Bex is just awesome as usual but we see a side to her that really deepens her personality. Liz and Macey have also developed becoming more sure of themselves and pushing themselves to the limits. And Zach, I'm pretty sure he just got hotter. Him and Cammie are just perfect for each other, so I would have like to have seen more lovey dovey moments in the book but saying that less didn;t detract from it at all. Ally also chucked in some nice surprises as well, bringing back some old characters who I didn't think I'd see again, and giving them starring roles in this book and by the looks of it the next as well. Let's just say I never thought I would see Preston as hot but he is now definitely up there in this series.
Ally did a wonderful job with book, answering a lot of questions but leaving many more open. I look forward to the next book, and hopefully we get it much soon than this one.
Torment by Lauren Kate
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| Fallen #2 |
Rating: 1/5
Hell on earth. That's what it's like for Luce to be apart from her fallen angel boyfriend, Daniel.It took them an eternity to find one another, but now he has told her he must go away. Just long enough to hunt down the Outcasts--immortals who want to kill Luce. Daniel hides Luce at Shoreline, a school on the rocky California coast with unusually gifted students: Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans. At Shoreline, Luce learns what the Shadows are, and how she can use them as windows to her previous lives. Yet the more Luce learns, the more she suspects that Daniel hasn't told her everything. He's hiding something--something dangerous.What if Daniel's version of the past isn't actually true? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else? The second novel in the addictive FALLEN series . . . where love never dies.
I am getting the feeling that I won't be able to get through this series without sounding like nothing Ms Kate does is good enough. Once again she has produced a book that I just want to throw at the wall.
Ok, so let's start off with the good news, and what pushed this book up to 1 star,some of the secondary characters. I actually really found myself liking Miles, he was sweet and charming, and I really wanted Luce to ditched Daniel for him (alas it was not to be). While he was still very one dimensional, he was a likable character, just one of those genuinely good guys that you would like to have as a friend or as a boyfriend. I was glad he was a part of the book as he kinda saved it from a premature death, and he made up for the lack of Cam who I am really growing to like. Cam was a highlight of the last book, and he was the high point of this one as well when he turned up, but at the moment I'm really not understanding his motivations, hopefully this will be remidied in the next book. Oh, and she got the concept of Nephalim, kudos to her!
Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends and the bad news begins. Luce is so damn annoying, please can Daniel's kiss kill her already! She's whiny and just a lot stupid. How many times does she need to be told not to leave the school, only to leave and have someone try to kill her? Really, get a clue girl, nobody might not be telling you the why behind the instructions, but surely after everything that happens everytime you leave, you would get a clue and figure it out for yourself. I really don't think a main character has ever annoyed me as much as she does. Then there's the issue that all of a sudden the Announcers aren't showing up to her en-masse anymore, and she can apparently manipulate them into showing her the past. All this and no explanation....And Daniel is no better, for someone whose meant to me a ex-hot shot in heaven you would think he had more brains than to keep breaking his own rules and going to see Luce. I just can't believe someone as immature as he is could ever have been so high up and important. Then there's their relationship, last time I checked while couples do have fights, they don't fight every single time they see each other. Is it just me or is something wrong with this picture? All the other characters are still rather unremarkable and are still randomly changing personalities without explanation.
The plot, quite frankly, was barely existant. Sure things seemed to happening behind the scenes without Luce knowing but we didn't exactly find anything out and that is a major problem because two books and only one major (albeit obvious) reveal does not keep a reader hooked. At this stage I really couldn;t care less about what secrets are still hidden becuase there hasn;t been anything to grab my attention and go wow, if this is only one of the answers than what could the rest be. Please, Ms Kate learn how to create suspense properly becuase I really don't like being bored to death. Then there's this whole big battle and people choosing sides thing. I kinda get where Ms Kate was going with the who Angels and Demons idea, where sometimes good and evil aren't too different, but there was a lack of explanation. We have the Outcasts who sided with Lucifer until the Fall when they were banished to Earth with the others. So, where do the Angels and Demons come into all of this as why does one opinion affect their inherent being so much? The wings of Demons look different and apparently their inherent character is more "evil" but why then do they work together with the Angels and why then can they change sides (for that matter do they randomly turn all angelic again if they do change sides?). There's just something missing here and I don't think the term Demons was appropriate to use for this book's mythology.
So, now that I've got that off my chest onward to the third book in the series which according to other reviews is better. I hope so because surely it can't get worse.
Ciao
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