Review: Not If I See You First - Eric Lindstorm

Not If I See You First
Eric Lindstorm
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Poppy
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

Ya'll, I told you I'd be back with a good review, and this one is the real deal. Not If I See You First is SO good!!! Not only is this the first book I've read with a blind protagonist, but this book is diverse without shoving it in your face, and honestly does the unlikeable-protagonist thing damn well. Lets talk specifics:

Parker Grant is in high school and her voice is snarky and unlikeable and honestly, just like an actual teenager which is so hard to find anywhere. I loved how brusque she was, I genuinely don't like when characters or perfect or come with just one overwhelming hamartia. Parker's voice feels so real to me - as a snarky teenage girl myself I can attest that the writing of not only her voice, but all the characters voices was on key to what you'd find in any high school.

Now that you know that about the protagonist, and you've also found out that she is blind, let's talk a little more about the plot: Parker was blinded 10 years ago in a car accident and lost her mother, and at the very beginning of this book loses her father. She lives now with some of her relatives who she's not a fan of -- she's kind of a jerk to them but honestly given the circumstances of her father just dying and them not obeying "the rules" (to be discussed later) I really liked how her relationship with them was portrayed.

All the supporting characters were pretty fleshed out too, but in a way that shows them from Parker's point of view. So much of the book is about Parker's journey without seeming overly melodramatic -- the plot is simple and doesn't cover an extremely long period of time and covers a lot of character development. I'm not really sure how else to say this other than just /read/ /the/ /book/. READ IT. I'm sorry this review is so short but it's really hard for me to talk about this without spoiling literally everything. Read the book. It's fantastic. Can't wait to read more from Eric Lindstrom!

- Amrutha

What's a rule you have about your life?

Let us know in the comments!

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of 2016

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Here at We Live and Breathe Books, two of us choose five books each week. This weeks topic is...

Most anticipated releases for 
the second half of 2016!

Kiersten's Picks

For this list, the first half is going to be books I'm looking forward to that I don't have, and the second half will be books I have that I'm really excited to read! Each section is listed in release order.

Books I Don't Have:

Enter Title Here
Rahul Kanakia
Release Date: August 2, 2016
Goodreads 

The concept of Enter Title Here seems like a cross between Never Always Sometimes and a completely neurotic perfectionist. I love the idea of a by-the-books over-achiever trying to branch out and have "normal high school experiences" as part of her college acceptance journey.

Empire of Storms
Sarah J. Maas
Throne of Glass, #5
Release Date: September 6, 2016

Goodreads 

It is no secret that I love the Throne of Glass series and all of Sarah J. Maas's work in general. My excitement for Empire of Storms is unreal. There are not enough words for me to continue to repeat my excitement forever. I can't wait for the inevitable heartbreak that will come from this book.

I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Gretchen McNeil
Release Date: September 13, 2016
Goodreads 

I absolutely love the idea behind this book - a girl uses her math skills to formulate how she and her friends can find social happiness. It vaguely reminds me of Ice Princess, which is one of my favorite movies. I'm Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun!

Strange the Dreamer
Laini Taylor 
Strange the Dreamer, #1
Release Date: September 27, 2016
Goodreads 

If you haven't read the blurb for Strange the Dreamer on Goodreads yet, you should. It's so vague but it made me so excited for this. I haven't read any of Laini Taylor's work yet (dishonor on my family, I know) but this one sounds amazing.

Heartless
Marissa Meyer
Release Date: November 8, 2016

Goodreads 

I'm going to get more into this when I do my BEA 2016 recap, but Heartless is the one book I really wanted to pick up at BEA that I did not get to (much sads). I've really enjoyed The Lunar Chronicles books that I've read (I still have Fairest and Winter left), and Heartless sounds like it's going to be really different but equally awesome.

Books I Have:

I'd just like to include a shoutout to Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff because it would be on this list if I hadn't already read it. (It was amazing. Highly recommend The Illuminae Files.)

The Thousandth Floor
Katharine McGee
The Thousandth Floor, #1
Release Date: August 30, 2016
Goodreads 

I didn't really know anything about this when I picked it up, but all the promotional things around it seemed really cool and LOOK AT THAT COVER. To be honest, I still don't really know that much about it (which I kind of prefer), but I'm really excited to read this one this summer.

Spontaneous
Aaron Stormer
Release Date: August 30, 2016
Goodreads 

Spontaneous was definitely on my radar going into BEA, and the woman hawking the signing made it even better. Her sell of Spontaneous while wearing a poncho: "Exploding teenagers in New Jersey! Comes will a poncho for splatter protection!" I think that's all I need to say.

Furthermore
Taherah Mafi
Release Date: August 30, 2016
Goodreads 

I haven't read any of Taherah Mafi's books yet (dishonor on my cow), but I've been wanting to and I think Furthermore will end up being my first! Even though it's middle grade, this book sounds so imaginative and fun.

Three Dark Crowns
Kendare Blake
Untitled, #1
Release Date: September 20, 2016
Goodreads 

I found out about Three Dark Crowns a while back, so I was anxious to get a copy at BEA this year. The concept seems really interesting and I've heard great things. My mom read my ARC already, and she really liked it.

Vassa in the Night
Sarah Porter

Release Date: September 20, 2016
Goodreads 

Last but not least is Vassa in the Night! This is actually one of the books that prevented me from getting Heartless, but I knew I really wanted this one when I read the blurb. The magical side of Brooklyn? With a magical doll? I'm so into this.

What 2016 releases are you anticipating?

Let us know in the comments!

Review: The King Slayer - Virginia Boecker

The King Slayer
Virginia Boecker 
Series: The Witch Hunter, #2
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

Thanks to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for the eARC I received via NetGalley!

Last year when I read The Witch Hunter I absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, the fact that I loved the book was the only thing I remembered about it when I approached its sequel. While some things came back to me as I was reading The King Slayer, I spent a lot of the time I was reading trying to grasp at vague memories from the previous book. I wish I could have remembered more or had reread The Witch Hunter before going into The King Slayer because I think it would have helped me to enjoy it more.

Since I remembered very little going into The King Slayer, I spent a lot of time trying to grasp onto the characters that I had loved, according to my review of The Witch Hunter. I enjoyed how much Elizabeth evolved throughout the book. After having her entire world view changed in The Witch Hunter, I didn't expect to see her change as much as she did, but given some of the events near the end of the previous book as well as some revelations in The King Slayer, Elizabeth and John had much to work through. I didn't find either of the characters super compelling, but I enjoyed their growth.

In The King Slayer, we also get our first real glimpse at Malcolm, the king. To be honest, I wasn't really satisfied with the way he was portrayed, particularly in regards to some things brought up in the previous book. Additionally, I wish George had been more present in this book. The one character I mentioned really enjoying and wanting more of in my The Witch Hunter review was George, and he was almost entirely absent from the book.

One thing I can say for certain is that The King Slayer did not disappoint when it comes to steady action and excitement. There were so many twists and turns throughout this book before it reached the end. However, despite all this excitement, I found that I wasn't particularly invested. The characters were not as interesting to me in this installment as they were in the previous, so I had trouble caring what happened to them, especially because, knowing this was the finale, I was pretty confident everything was going to work out.

Overall, The King Slayer is not a bad finale to the duology - it is action packed, and the magical element of the book becomes even more interesting as the plot progresses. I think the main thing that took away from the book for me was that the beginning of the book could have done more to support my memory of The Witch Hunter. The Witch Hunter series is definitely worth a read, but I highly recommend reading the books close together or rereading the first book before moving on to The King Slayer.

- Kiersten

Do you reread books before reading the sequel?

Let us know in the comments!

Review: The Loose Ends List - Carrie Firestone

The Loose Ends List
Carrie Firestone 
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

Thanks to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for the ARC received at BEA!

Ya'll, I'm back. And as luck would have it, the first book I'm actually reviewing in a really long time ended up being a not so great one (sigh). I /promise/ I'll review something I really enjoyed soon but for now stick with me as we delve into The Loose Ends List, which Kiersten picked up as an ARC from this years BEA (which I sadly could not attend because finals and 1500 miles away). 

Alright, so I'm not going to lie to you and say that I was super excited to read this book at the start -- I wasn't, but I'm all about giving things chances because you never know what you might love, right? Wrong. So the premise of the book is that our main protagonist Maddie is a girl who lives a pretty cushy life and then one day before she makes her way to college, her Gram who is apparently on the brink of death, decides that her whole family should go on some cruise so that they might have the summer of their dreams and cope with the grief to come or something. This wasn't the issue I had with the book, it seemed kind of confusing but a lot of books have weird family backgrounds to make the plot work, so I genuinely thought that might be interesting. What concerned me was this:

Soon, Maddie is on the trip of a lifetime with her over-the-top family. As they travel the globe, Maddie bonds with other passengers and falls for Enzo, who is processing his own grief. But despite the laughter, headiness of first love, and excitement of glamorous destinations, Maddie knows she is on the brink of losing Gram. She struggles to find the strength to say good-bye in a whirlwind summer shaped by love, loss, and the power of forgiveness.

What is posted above is from the blurb. Read this and tell me right now that Maddie falling in her "first love" with Enzo on some death cruise doesn't scream insta-love to you. BUT NONETHELESS, I read the book.

Alright so you guys might have been confused about the death cruise -- don't worry, Gram didn't set them up for a depressing Carnival cruise while everyone else around them partied away happily. This is some sort of ominous cruise in which everyone can "die with dignity." I honestly still think its a pretty weird concept but unique enough, and it was honestly the most interesting thing about the book, so thats where this book's points come from.

Anyway, whilst dying with dignity, our characters travel the globe -- the descriptions of the actual countries were cool but the descriptions of the people who lived in the countries weren't. More on that later. But the actual discussion of death in all of this was done pretty well in my opinion; the book would've benefitted greatly if only death was more relevant and Enzo as a character was just completely cut out.

Okay now that I've sufficiently explained the only real perks about the book, let me tackle what I wasn't a fan of. I've read quite a few reviews of this book that discuss how funny it is and honestly, while I'm all for a well placed penis joke, this was just ridiculous. I am a person who laughs out loud at books when they are funny, and I promise you I didn't laugh even once during this book. Alright, moving past the humor, the characters: Maddie was honestly so annoying. Her instalove with Enzo was predictable and so quick that it didn't make any sense to be her "first love." Everything outside of the death conversation was just so /predictable/. Instalove. Maddie was a rich white girl from a rich white family who did rich things. Her friends and family are described through flat static descriptions -- slut. alcoholic. the nice one. overly honest grandma. the virgin. The humor was so centered around these stereotypical/archaic ideas of what people should be -- I'm not joking when I say 99% of the humor was about penises and poop (Maddie has IBS for literally no real reason other than to make some crude jokes). 

The plot was vaguely interesting but the characters were honestly written so statically that I had no interest in even trying to like them slowly over the course of the book. Overall, not a fan. However, this book has really great reviews and I only saw a few that saw the book from my point of view, so there's a pretty good chance you might like it! Let me know how you feel so I have someone to talk about this with :)

- Amrutha

How would you tie up your loose ends?

Let us know in the comments!

Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses - Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Thorns and Roses
Sarah J. Maas
Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on this blog before, but I really love faeries as a Concept. Like, in literature, in fairytales, in folklore. So I knew I was late to the ACOTAR train because I read it a month after the sequel came out, but when I saw there were faeries involved I knew I was hella late to the party.

ALSO, on Goodreads, the book description says the book "blend[s] Beauty and the Beast with faerie lore" so you know it's a retelling but the summary on my physical book did not tell me that so I went in blind and halfway through I was like "haha this is like Beauty and the Beast" and I thought I was so smart but no it's literally marketed that way, I'm just a moron.

Basically the book is about this girl, Feyre, who kills a wolf who turns out to be a faerie and her "life for a life" punishment is to live out the rest of her life at the estate of the High Fae, Tamlin.

Anyway, this was the first Sarah J. Maas book I've read and it was so good, I'm ashamed her other work got buried in my to-read pile. She does such a fantastic job not only world-building but character developing. I'm hoping all of you are familiar with the story of Beauty and the Beast (and if you're not please go watch the movie and come back or I'm not tryna associate with you thx) and you know that one of the key aspects of the story is the character development and the relationship between the characters (For the sake of simplicity, when I refer to Beauty and the Beast, I'm just gonna be referring to the Disney movie because that's probably the most widely known version and I don't remember the full details of the original). Similarly, in ACOTAR, we spend a lot of the book developing and establishing the relationships between the characters we've met thus far.

This makes the pacing a little slow -- the real ~action~ isn't until the very end -- but Sarah J. Maas gets away with it for a few reasons:

1. It's a retelling and it stays within its form. Beauty and the Beast the movie spent the entire movie solidifying their love in the castle and then in the last ten minutes there was a village riot. This was a lot more intricate than that but because it had that foundation, readers are already expecting to spend time in a certain place. 
2. We're in a new setting and there's a lot to explore, so it's not like we're reading the same every day scene over and over again, we're getting something new with every page. 
3. The point where all the action culminates is led up to and hinted at so there are still ~things~ going on besides characters talking to each other. 

I know I've said a few things about character development but haven't said anything about actual characters. The first characters we encounter are Feyre's family and I was really impressed with how that story arc unfolded but I was really angrily dumbstruck in the beginning with their dynamic and that's all I'll say now. Feyre herself honestly made me a little angry at times, mostly because she just refused to do things out of spite (same though), or she just made blatantly unsafe decisions. I admired her gut and her strength for the most part though. I think my favorite character would have to be Lucien. Tamlin owns the estate Feyre is now staying at and Lucien is the emissary but they're like bffs (Tamlin and Lucien) and also Lucien is highkey mean to Feyre and puts up with zero percent of her nonsense. He's so sarcastic and hilarious and bitter and I lowkey ship him and Feyre which is a boat no one else is on. Meanwhile Tamlin is sweet, kind, and collected. A true gentleman. I love him as well and I think the understanding he has with Feyre is lovely. Of course, later on we meet Rhysand because you can never have too many faerie boys in black leather clothing, and he's got the whole ~mysterious terrifying mind control~ air to him which I think will probably be explored in the next book. 

There were more people, obviously, and also a lot more to say about even those few people, but this is a short, spoiler-free review, so I'm moving on. I really liked seeing the world through Feyre's eyes. As an artist, she saw the world in an interesting way. Sometimes it could get a little old seeing her suppress it because it would be like ~~I would look at the purple in the sky right now but it's not useful to me so I'm not going to~~ a few times in succession but it never got too much that I didn't enjoy the book. And there were always gems of prose that balanced it out. For example, way in the beginning, she describes: 

"The world was awash in hues of dark blue, interrupted only by shafts of buttery light escaping from the shuttered windows of our dilapidated cottage. It was like sliding through a living painting -- a fleeting moment of stillness, the blue swiftly shifting to solid darkness."

This was like nine pages in but it told me I made the right choice picking this book. 

Anyway, there isn't a whole lot more I can say without spoiling the book. Basically, the characters were amazing, and the stuff that happened was amazing. Basically, go read the book. One final point, that may sound silly, but is 100% serious: I think pronunciation guides should be at the front of books because I read through that entire book pronouncing Rhysand as (Rice-and) and now I flip to the last page and it's REECE???? It's already embedded into my brain for eternity. I'm not gonna stop calling him Rice!!!! I'd probably be calling Feyre "Fair" if there wasn't a dialogue scene where her sister says "fay-ruh." This has been a PSA. Bring pronunciation guides up front. 

Peace out. 

- Noor

Additional thoughts from Kiersten

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Ok, so I read A Court of Thorns and Roses a while back. I meant to write a review, but I didn't, and now it feels like there is too much time between us for me to write a full review. However, I did just want to say how much I absolutely loved A Court of Thorns and Roses! The entire book was such a quick, exciting read for me. I love all of Sarah J. Maas's work, and even though I thought for sure this could not live up to the Throne of Glass series, it totally did and was so amazing. I am forever shamed for doubting the great Sarah J. Maas.

Anyway, if you haven't read A Court of Thorns and Roses or Throne of Glass yet, I'm not sure what you're waiting for. Strong female characters, incredible worlds, action, romance, magic, etc. Just pick one up and see for yourself.

- Kiersten

What's your favorite creature of lore?
Let us know in the comments!