Two Book Reviews

I come armed with two reviews of the young adult variety. I'm eight books down for my ten book a month challenge. The ninth book has yet to be decided, but the tenth book which I have saved for the last week of January will be one of my classics for the year. I've chosen Persuasion as I simply fell in love with Austen's work after struggling to finish a rather flat copy of Pride and Prejudice. After a simple change in edition (to the Penguin Classics which I now adore!) I finished P&P in a day after it had taken me a year to get through the first 200 pages. Lesson is that an edition changes everything.

I've also signed up for Library of Clean Reads Italy Challenge. I'm not sure which level I'm going for yet, but I have four books I'm eying for use in the challenge. I've set so many challenges for myself. Let's hope I can make them.

Anyway on to the reviews. First up is the Private Prequel, The Book of Spells.

The Book of Spells by Kate Brian

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Reading this book was kind of bittersweet. It's the last of the Private books that I haven't read yet. Having read the other books, I had heard about the Billings Literary Society. I was really excited to learn more about them. When I started reading the books I kind of got deja vu. From reading the Private novels, I know that Reed and Noelle are descendents of Eliza. But Eliza's introduction to the school seemed just like Reed's.

I initially thought Theresa was more like Noelle in the first few Private books, but it turns out she's an ancestor of Paige and Dylan. I think the books said something about that. My memory is vague. Of course I knew that Catherine was a great-great-great aunt of Ariana. I didn't get the killer vibes from Catherine.

Catherine ends up dying and the coven tries to bring her back to life. They do the spell and they do. I have to say it was anti-climatic. The creature just tried to choke Eliza. Is that all? Maybe it was my impression in reading the Private novels, but I expected some worse or more gruesome. Apparently the creature looked and sounded just like Catherine, but obviously it wasn't her.

All in all though I enjoyed the book and it was a quick read.



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I was really expecting more out of this book. The end of the Private series was kind of anti-climatic and from the way things were explained in the main series, I was expecting the creature to be more gruesome or something. That's the way they made it sound, but all it did was choke Eliza before they used a spell against it. Seriously? I kind of wished there were an epilogue though. I want to know if Eliza ended up with Harrison. I know she had children because of Noelle and Reed, but who did she marry? Questions, I have them Kate Brian.

Next up was Alicia's part of the Clique Summer Collection. It was a quick read at 112 pages and I finished it in an hour. Beyond some minor complaints about word usage. I generally enjoyed it. It was fun and very chick lit for teens. Also as someone that likes to invent words, I kind giggled at some the Clique-isms. True story, I checked out the Clictionary at my local library and I regret that I didn't pursue it closer because then I would know what some of the acronyms mean.


Alicia by Lisi Harrison

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


So I read the first two Clique novels and I enjoyed them and thus I bought the subsequent books. While shopping I saw four of the five summer collections going for $0.97 each. Now while I spend a lot of money on books, I loves me a good bargain! So of course I bought them.



I picked up Alicia's book this evening. Keep in mind that I haven't read the series since late 2011. It took me a minute to get back into the flow.I immediately knew I had missed some things, but that didn't bother me too much. What did bother me were the words used. Some of the stuff I could let slip by and I have to admit I liked some of the terminology. But spelling hot hawt and not nawt? That was just too much for me. It's minor, but I can get really picky about using proper language.



I did feel for Alicia for being thrown over by her cousins, but she bonded with Nina and I thought that was sweet. In the end she won the day when Nigel turned out to be the Spanish pop star. That did kind of surprise and I admit my inner thirteen year old cheered. Everything turned out okay.



So in conclusion I will be reading the other Summer Collections, maybe sooner than later and I'll get back to reading the main novels.



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