Book Review: Royally Screwed (Book #1 in the Royally series) by Emma Chase

Right off the bat, I have to say that as someone who’s a huge fan of Emma Chase’s books, I was really excited about Royally Screwed and the Royally series as a whole ever since she first announced the series, and I’m very happy to say that I absolutely loved this book. That being said, while I’ve always thought that the overall quality of Emma Chase’s writing for the Tangled series was pretty good, in retrospect I do think that Chase’s writing for the series is somewhat uneven. Tangled (The book) is a very well written, and impressive debut novel from a first-time author; and in my opinion, it’s the best book in the series. Twisted was okay, and it did have some great moments, but it’s definitely not a great book, as far as I’m concerned. Tamed is definitely my second favorite book in the series, and despite the fact that Tied does include some great moments throughout the book, it’s still the weakest book in the Tangled series, in my opinion. When it comes to the Legal Briefs series, I didn’t think the first book, Overruled, was quite as good as Tangled (The book) was, but it was definitely better than the majority of the Tangled series. I felt like the Legal Briefs series pretty much only went uphill from there, making the series better than the Tangled series. That being said, while I don’t necessarily think that Chase topped herself yet again with Royally Screwed, I do think it’s the strongest first book that she has written for one of her book series.

The reason I’m beginning this review by mentioning my thoughts on the Tangled series is because one thing that I found myself thinking about a lot as I was listening to Royally Screwed on audiobook, was that I felt like Chase has really honed her craft if you compare her writing for Royally Screwed to her writing for the Tangled series. Much like Drew Evans from the Tangled series, the primary protagonist of Royally Screwed, Prince Nicholas Arthur Frederick Edward Pembrook, is definitely what I would describe as being a “lovable asshole”. However, compared to Drew, I felt like Chase did a much better job of creating the perfect balance of Nicholas acting like a real asshole at times, while also having him demonstrate a lot of great, redeeming qualities throughout the book as well; making him a very nuanced and lovable character.

When it came to Drew, I started out the Tangled series absolutely loving him, but by the end of the series, he had repeatedly pissed me off, and annoyed me quite a bit throughout the series, to the point where I ultimately simply just liked him a lot by the end of the series. I definitely didn’t love him as much as I did when the series began, especially due to how he was written at times in Twisted and Tied. Plus, he really pissed me off in “Holy Frigging Matrimony”. A big part of why I loved the Legal Briefs series even more than the Tangled series is because I ultimately loved Stanton, Jake, and Brent a lot more than I liked Drew by the end of the Tangled series. That being said, after reading Royally Screwed, I’d say that Nicholas is definitely my favorite out of all the male protagonists in Emma Chase’s books.

Book Review: Beautiful Bitch (Book #1.5 in the Beautiful series) by Christina Lauren

Right off the bat, I have to say that reading Beautiful Bitch was definitely somewhat of an unusual experience for me due to the fact that I hadn’t realized that it was considered #1.5 in the Beautiful series, and that Beautiful Stranger is labeled as #2 in the series until after I had finished listening to the audiobook version of Beautiful Stranger. Putting aside the fact that it was kind of weird for me to backtrack a little bit by reading this book after reading and reviewing Beautiful Stranger, I absolutely loved this book. One of the many things that I loved about Beautiful Bitch is that we got to see the next chapter in Chloe and Bennett’s relationship after they got back together at the end of Beautiful Bastard, and embarked on an actual committed relationship. I felt like the relatively immediate aftermath of Chloe and Bennett getting back together at the end of Beautiful Bastard that we got to see in flashbacks that were featured in this book was very true to how I would imagine things playing out between Chloe and Bennett; regardless of whether Christina Lauren had written Beautiful Bitch, or if they hadn’t, and it had been left up to the reader to imagine what next chapter of Chloe and Bennett’s relationship after the events of Beautiful Bastard would be like.

As much as I ultimately grew to love Bennett as a character by the end of Beautiful Bastard, and had thought that he had undergone some pretty great character development throughout Beautiful Bastard; he definitely didn’t come across as being the kind of guy who would immediately transform into a guy who would be worthy of receiving a “Boyfriend of the Year” award by the end of Beautiful Bastard. I imagined him experiencing some growing pains as he and Chloe embarked upon being in a committed relationship with each other, and that he would struggle with it a little bit; so I was absolutely thrilled to see that Christina Lauren wrote Bennett that way to a certain degree in this book. That being said, I did think that it was kind of odd that Chloe didn’t really struggle at all in terms of dealing with the way that their relationship had evolved over time like Bennett did. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not upset that Chloe didn’t really struggle in any way when it came to dealing with the two of them going from being in a rather casual workplace romance to being in a committed relationship, as well as the evolution of their relationship in the time that had passed between the end of Beautiful Bastard and the beginning of Beautiful Bitch. I just thought that it was a little odd that Chloe didn’t seem to really struggle at all with the shift in their relationship.

Despite the fact that Bennett did seem to struggle in some ways in terms of adjusting to being in a committed relationship with Chloe, I love that Christina Lauren really portrayed Bennett as being incredibly invested in his relationship with Chloe, and that they showed Bennett really making an effort to work on their relationship throughout the book. While I usually think that having a romance novel or any kind of book for that matter be low on conflict and angst can really make a book incredibly boring, I’m honestly really glad that Christina Lauren didn’t have anything too dramatic and angst-ridden happen between Chloe and Bennett in this book; such as have one of them cheat on the other, or have one of them almost cheat on the other. The fact that most of the problems that Chloe and Bennett had to deal with throughout the book basically had to do with their conflicting work schedules getting in the way of them being able to spend time together now that Chloe is no longer Bennett’s assistant, reminded me a lot of the simplicity of the problems that arose between Jake and Chelsea throughout Emma Chase’s Legal Briefs novella, Sidebarred. Pretty much all of the problems that Jake and Chelsea dealt with throughout Sidebarred had to do with them raising Chelsea’s nieces and nephews together, with Jake serving as a father figure to the kids now that he and Chelsea were married with a baby of their own on the way, but I digress.

Sidebarred (A Legal Briefs Novella): The gang’s all back, and I couldn’t be happier (My thoughts on Book #3.5 in the Legal Briefs series)

Right off the bat, I have to say that as much as I loved Appealed, and while I thought that it was a fantastic ending to the Legal Briefs series, I still wasn’t quite ready for the series to end; mainly because I was loving the series so much. That’s definitely one of the main reasons why I was really excited when Emma Chase announced that she had written a novella for the Legal Briefs series. While I did think that Appealed was a great way to end the Legal Briefs series, I think that Sidebarred was an even better ending to the series.

Prior to Sidebarred’s release, I initially got the impression that Emma Chase had written the novella with the story shifting back and forth between each of the main characters from the series. It was only a few weeks before Sidebarred’s release that I found out that that wasn’t the case, and that Sidebarred was written solely from Jake’s point of view. Personally, as much as I love Stanton, Sofia and Brent, I think that Jake was definitely the perfect choice when it comes to which character from the series should be the protagonist of Sidebarred. At its core, the character development and internal conflict that Jake underwent throughout Sustained was all about wanting to be a part of Chelsea and the kids’ lives, while also thinking that he wasn’t capable of being a family man with a wife and kids.

Sustained pretty much ended with Jake realizing that he had become a family man without even realizing it, thanks largely in part to the “intervention” that Stanton, Sofia and Brent had for him. I love that we got a brief glimpse in one scene from Appealed of what Jake was like after he had embraced the idea of being a family man, with him acting like a protective father to one of the teenage girls in the family when she came to his work with him, and there was a boy there that could have easily made advances towards her. However, that whole scene was written from Brent’s point of view, so we didn’t get that much insight into what had happened with Jake, Chelsea and the kids after Sustained ended. That being said, Emma Chase did a fantastic job of really giving the readers of the Legal Briefs series an in depth look at Jake’s life as a husband to Chelsea, and a father figure to Chelsea’s nieces and nephews in Sidebarred.

When it comes to the plot of Sidebarred, while I’m not sure that the plot and the book as a whole would have worked as well had it been a full-length novel; I thought that it worked perfectly as a novella. The reason I say this is because while Jake and Chelsea do face various problems throughout the book that were genuinely interesting and got me completely invested in the story, the plot of the book and the conflict that Jake and Chelsea face in Sidebarred wasn’t big and dramatic enough to sustain a full-length novel, in my opinion. The plot of the book revolves primarily around the fact that Jake and Chelsea decide to have a baby after Chelsea had thought that she might be pregnant, only to discover that she wasn’t pregnant after all when she took a pregnancy test. I could be wrong about the exact timespan of the book, but Sidebarred takes place over the span of about a year and follows Jake and Chelsea as they try to get pregnant and then follows them through the pregnancy, while they also deal with problems involving the kids and their work. Nothing truly dramatic happens to them or any of the other characters throughout the book. Honestly, I’m perfectly okay with that because I think that the problems that Jake and Chelsea face both as a couple, as the problems that they deal with individually, while also raising Chelsea’s six nieces and nephews, are all very relatable. Plus, I’m really glad that Chase didn’t have Jake and Chelsea dealing with any major drama and angst in their marriage, such as having one of them cheat on the other, or at least be tempted to cheat.

Beautiful Bastard: This book is seriously even better than I was expecting it to be (My thoughts on book #1 in the Beautiful series by Christina Lauren)

Before I get too far into discussing my thoughts on Beautiful Bastard, I definitely need to mention that this is actually a book that I’ve wanted to read for several years. The list of reasons for why I’ve wanted to read this book has definitely evolved over the years. I initially wanted to read Beautiful Bastard because I had heard that much like Fifty Shades of Grey, Beautiful Bastard was also originally a Twilight fan fic. Fifty Shades of Grey and Beautiful Bastard’s origins as Twilight fan fiction has definitely led to a lot of people that I’ve encountered online frequently comparing and contrasting the Fifty Shades series and the Beautiful series to each other, which naturally caused me to become interested in both series since I do like the Twilight books.

However, what ultimately served as my motivation to finally read Beautiful Bastard is the fact that I discovered that pretty much everybody who has been a narrator for the audiobook versions of Emma Chase’s books from her Tangled and Legal Briefs series have also served as narrators for various books and short stories from Christina Lauren’s Beautiful series, as well as their Wild Seasons series. I’ve loved all of the narrators for the audiobook versions of Emma Chase’s books, so that has definitely made me want to listen to the audiobook versions of Christina Lauren’s books even more than I already wanted to in the first place; that being said, here are my thoughts on Beautiful Bastard.

For the record, when I started reading Beautiful Bastard, I decided that I wasn’t going to spend the entire time that I was reading the book actively looking for similarities to Twilight and things about the book that might hint at or give away its origins as a Twilight fan fic; even though learning that Beautiful Bastard started out as a Twilight fan fic was one of the first things that got me interested in reading the Beautiful series. Based on what I’ve read of Fifty Shades of Grey so far, there’s no denying that it’s pretty obvious at certain points in the book that it originally started out as a Twilight fan fic. However, when it comes to Beautiful Bastard, there wasn’t really anything about it that I think screams, “Twilight!” Since I haven’t read the original Twilight fan fic version of Beautiful Bastard, which was called “The Office”, I obviously can’t do a comparison of Beautiful Bastard to the fan fic version of the story. That being said, I think that Christina Lauren did a great job of really distancing the story from Twilight and making Beautiful Bastard its own story. Honestly, if I hadn’t known about Beautiful Bastard’s origins as a Twilight fan fic before I started reading it, I’m pretty sure that I never would have guessed or believed that it ever had any connection to Twilight at all.

This just might be one of the best books that you’ll ever read (My thoughts on The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner)

Before I get into my review of Jeff Zentner’s book The Serpent King, I’d like to start off by briefly talking about how I found out about this book. While I originally saw The Serpent King when I was looking around at Barnes & Noble one day and both the cover and the title of the book caught my attention, I didn’t buy the book at that point in time. I ended up getting it in the March OwlCrate box. In case you don’t know what OwlCrate is, it’s a monthly YA book box. There’s a different theme for the box each month, for example the theme for March was “Writer’s Block”. Each month the box includes a recently released hardback YA book, along with three to five items centered around the theme for that month. Here’s a picture of everything that came in the March box that I posted on Instagram to give you an idea of what kind of stuff they put in the boxes each month.

Here's what came in the March OwlCrate box that I got in the mail today. I'm super excited about the book that they picked this month, which is The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner. :)

A photo posted by Taylor Glissman (@tmswriter6) on Mar 19, 2016 at 2:22pm PDT

This past December was my first month of OwlCrate, and the February box is probably my favorite of the boxes that I’ve gotten so far. The theme for that month was “Sci-fi Love”. Plans start at $29.99, plus shipping. The people who run OwlCrate are really nice, and they’re very good at answering any questions that people may have about OwlCrate on Twitter. I highly recommend signing up for OwlCrate, especially if you’re a fan of YA books. If you’re interested in learning more about OwlCrate or signing up for it, you can check out their website here. For the record, I wasn’t asked by the people who run OwlCrate to promote their business on my blog; I’m only mentioning OwlCrate here because I’m really loving OwlCrate, especially now that I’m mostly reviewing books for my blog instead of TV shows. With all that said, here are my thoughts on Jeff Zentner’s book The Serpent King.

Cress: This sure isn’t your typical Rapunzel retelling (My thoughts on book #3 in The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer)

Let me preface this review by saying that out of all the fairy tales that Marissa Meyer incorporated into The Lunar Chronicles, the story of Rapunzel is definitely the one that I know the least about. That being said, I feel like the fact that I wasn’t very familiar with the story of Rapunzel actually enhanced my enjoyment of Cress in a lot of ways. When I was reading Cinder and Scarlet, I found myself constantly thinking about the original stories of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood and was frequently wondering how Marissa Meyer might or might not incorporate and reimagine various elements from those stories into the series. However, when I was reading Cress, I just enjoyed it as its own unique story without ever really comparing and contrasting it to the story of Rapunzel.

Before I go any further, I’d like to just go right ahead and say that Cress is definitely my favorite book in the series so far. If you’ve read my review for Scarlet, you may remember that one of the things that I talked about in my review is that the book wasn’t quite what I was expecting when it comes to it serving as a follow-up to Cinder and a continuation of the series. Cress, however, was much more in line with what I had originally been expecting the books that followed Cinder to be like prior to actually reading Scarlet. One of my biggest criticisms about Scarlet is that I felt like Cinder was kind of hogging the spotlight throughout the book, and when that wasn’t the case, the book felt like too much of an ensemble piece for my taste. I really feel like Marissa Meyer should have focused at least a little more on Scarlet and Wolf in Scarlet than she did. While Cress is also very much an ensemble piece, I think Meyer did a much better job of putting most of the focus of the book on Cress, as well as Thorne since he’s Cress’ love interest in the series.

One of things that I have to give this book a lot of praise for is the fact that the story had really great pacing, in my opinion. There was a lot of action and different things happening throughout the book, but the story never felt like it was moving too slow or too fast. Plus, all of the storylines that were going on throughout the book were very interesting and engaging, so I never found myself getting bored, or having trouble paying attention to the story as I was listening to the audiobook version of Cress.

Crescent “Cress” Moon Darnel is definitely a very likable and interesting character. In a story that’s full of fantasy elements, she really felt like a real person and a well-rounded character, especially when it came to her feelings for Thorne. Given the fact that Cress had lived a rather sheltered life, being stuck in a satellite in space for pretty much her entire life, it made a lot of sense to me that she would have somewhat of a naïve view of the world and the stories that she had read about Thorne in the news. She believed that Thorne had had noble reasons for the various questionable things that he had done over the years, often breaking various laws in the process, when in reality Thorne’s motives for his actions had typically been rather self-serving.

Captivated by You: Gee, I really wish I could say that I was “captivated” by this book, but… (My thoughts on book #4 in the Crossfire series by Sylvia Day)

Let me start out by saying that originally I wasn’t planning to read and review Captivated by You any time soon. However, I ultimately decided to go ahead and read it now because I wanted to have a book to read while I was working on my review for the second book in Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series, Scarlet. Since my reviews for Bared to You, Reflected in You, and Entwined with You, have all gotten a lot of page views and the fifth and final book in the Crossfire series, One with You, will be coming out in a few weeks, I decided that now would be a good time to read and review Captivated by You; that being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I unfortunately hated this book for the most part. If you’ve read my review for Emma Chase’s book Appealed, the main problem that I’ve had with this series as a whole, but especially when it comes to Entwined with You, is that it really feels like Sylvia Day is trying to cram as many sex scenes into the books as she possibly can, at the expense of having good character and story development in the books. I wish that I could say she did a better job of providing character and story development in this book, and to be fair, she did in some ways, which I’ll get to later; but for the most part, believe it or not, the whole issue of Day focusing more on having lots of sex scenes in the Crossfire series than she is on having good character and story development is even worse in Captivated by You.

Honestly, there are so many sex scenes throughout the book that the writing for Captivated by You as a whole felt extremely repetitive in the end. Despite the fact that the sex scenes are pretty steamy and well written, they actually become rather boring after a while due to the high number of sex scenes in the book. The way this book is written, it’s like Sylvia Day was thinking about the expression, “sex sells” as she was writing it, and she just went completely and totally overboard when it came to incorporating sex scenes into Captivated by You. If I had been reading a physical copy of the book instead of listening to the audiobook version like I did, there’s a really good chance that I would have started skimming through the sex scenes after a while. I think if I had done that, I might have been able to read this entire book in just a day or two, because that’s how many sex scenes there are in this book.

I’ll give Sylvia Day credit for not making Eva and Gideon’s relationship feel like one giant never ending angst fest in this book like I feel she has in the past, especially when it comes to Reflected in You. Eva and Gideon did seem happier together in this book compared to how they’ve been other times in the past. Plus, it was definitely interesting to see them deal with the fact that they’re secretly already married, while everybody else thinks that they’re currently just engaged and in the process of planning their wedding. However, the fact that Eva and Gideon are constantly having sex with each other really made me question how much depth their relationship actually has. The way Eva and Gideon act with each other most of the time makes it seem like they can’t be alone together for more than five minutes without them having sex. That really makes me wonder if their relationship really has what it takes to last for the rest of their lives. After all, once they’re old, their sex drive could quite possibly diminish, or it might become physically challenging for them to have sex with each other. If that were to happen, I honestly don’t know what they would do when they’re spending time together since sex has always been such a huge part of their relationship.

Scarlet: This sure isn’t your typical Little Red Riding Hood retelling (My thoughts on book #2 in The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer)

Now that I’ve finished reading and reviewing Emma Chase’s Legal Briefs series (Overruled, Sustained, Appealed), I’ve decided to read and review the rest of the Lunar Chronicles basically back-to-back-to-back. Admittedly, I originally thought about doing that when I read and reviewed Cinder back in January, but I ultimately decided to hold off on doing that since I wanted to do the same thing with the Legal Briefs series; that being said, here are my thoughts on Scarlet.

Right off the bat, I have to admit that while I loved Scarlet, this book ended up being very different from the way I was expecting it to be. I was really expecting the titular Scarlet Benoit to be featured in this book front and center with her being the protagonist of the book, and Wolf basically being the co-lead character of the book. However, this book ultimately ended up feeling like more of an ensemble piece than anything else. That definitely really took me by surprise as I was reading it.

While I’ve always thought that three of the most important tasks that the first book in a series is supposed to accomplish is to introduce the main characters, introduce the premise of the series, as well as establish the status quo for the series; I feel like this book did a much better job of establishing what I can expect from the Lunar Chronicles as a whole. Sure, Cinder did a great job of introducing the characters Cinder, Kai and Queen Levana, as well as various aspects of the series such as how the characters are dealing with the threat of the letumosis plague; but as I said, I was originally expecting each book in the series to focus primarily on a different character, with the characters from the previous books being featured in a rather reduced capacity. However, Scarlet really ended up coming across as an ensemble novel that focused on a variety of characters instead of focusing primarily on Scarlet, along with Wolf.

Appealed: It’s official! The Legal Briefs series is even better than the Tangled series! (My thoughts on Book #3 in the Legal Briefs series by Emma Chase)

As I said in my review for Sustained, while I thought that it was Emma Chase’s best book yet, I was still open to the possibility that I might end up thinking that she topped herself yet again with Appealed once I read it. Right off the bat, I have to say that I’m very glad that I kept my mind open to that possibility, because that’s exactly what ended up happening. As much as I loved Sustained, I definitely found myself loving this book even more than I loved Sustained in some ways.

One of the things that I’ve always loved about Emma Chase’s books, going all the way back to Tangled, is the fact that she often writes her books in such a way that it feels like the protagonists of her books are talking to the reader in the narrative and telling them a story. This particular aspect of Emma Chase’s writing style is definitely more noticeable at times than others, and it was definitely very noticeable in Appealed. The reason why I really love it when she has the protagonists of her books basically talk to the reader from time to time, is because it really helps to draw me into the story and become very invested in the characters and the story itself. This particular aspect of Chase’s writing style is definitely one of the many things that made me fall in love with the book Tangled when I read it, and it was one of the many things that has really made me fall in love with her writing in general. While I’ve always loved it when she has her protagonists basically talk to the reader, I especially love how she handled that particular aspect of her writing style for this book. It was something that really made me fall in love with the character Brent as I was reading Appealed.

I feel like I’ve made it pretty clear by this point that one of the biggest reasons why I love Emma Chase’s books so much is because all of her books are written partially, if not entirely, from the guy’s point of view. Brent is yet another great character, and I’d say that I love Brent about as much as I loved Jake in Sustained. Brent is an all around great character, and I loved Brent’s internal narrative, because I often times found the things that he was thinking rather amusing. However, the thing that I loved the most about Brent is how he acted towards Kennedy, especially at the beginning of the book before they really get together, his therapist, Dr. Waldo Bingingham, and his butler, Harrison. I found it rather amusing that Brent was so hung up on the fact that his therapist’s first name is Waldo. I could also kind relate to that, because I definitely have a tendency to get hung up on what a person’s name is sometimes, especially if it’s a name that’s kind of unique. I also really enjoyed the dynamic between Brent and Harrison, because I definitely saw a little bit of myself in Brent when it comes to how he acted towards Harrison as well.

Sustained: Emma Chase did it! She topped Tangled! (My thoughts on Book #2 in the Legal Briefs series by Emma Chase)

If you’ve read my review for Overruled, you’ll know that I said that I thought that it might be very difficult, if not impossible, for Emma Chase to top Tangled when it comes to deciding which of her books is my favorite and how I would rank each of them. The reason I’m bringing this up is because I’m very excited to say that Emma Chase did it. She completely topped Tangled with Sustained, and I definitely think that Sustained is her best book yet. That being said, I’ll admit that perhaps I’m being a bit premature in saying that Sustained is Emma Chase’s book yet since I haven’t read Appealed at this point in time. However, if I had to say which of her books is my favorite at the moment, it would definitely be Sustained; that being said, I’m totally open to the possibility that I’ll end up thinking that she topped herself yet again once I read Appealed.

Based on Overruled and Sustained alone, I have to say that I definitely think that the Legal Briefs series is even better than the Tangled series. As much as I love the Tangled series, it’s not without its flaws, and I feel like the quality of the writing for the Tangled series as a whole definitely had its share of ups and downs. Emma Chase’s writing for the Legal Briefs series on the other hand is definitely a lot stronger and better than even her best writing for the Tangled series was, in my opinion. Things that I felt could have been handled better in Twisted and Tied in particular are handled a lot better in the Legal Briefs series.

For starters, I’m really glad that she switched back and forth between Stanton and Sofia’s points of view throughout Overruled instead of writing most of the book from one character’s point of view and then suddenly switching to a different character’s point of view towards the very end of the book for the epilogue like she did with Twisted. Plus, as I said in my review for Overruled, I thought that Stanton’s dislike of JD was much more understandable and easier to sympathize with than Drew’s dislike of Billy was after Tangled. If you ask me, the resolution of Stanton’s issues with JD was also handled a lot better than Drew’s hatred towards Billy was resolved in Tied.

When it comes to Sustained, there really is a lot to love about this book, and it’s honestly kind of hard for me to know where to start when it comes to talking about what I love about this book. For starters, one thing that I’ve always felt that Emma Chase really excels at when it comes to her books is being able to pretty much instantly get the readers interested and invested in the story right off the bat. Whenever I’ve read one of her books, I’ve always been able to get invested in the story within the first few paragraphs, if not the first few sentences of the book, and that was definitely the case with this book. It’s definitely a good thing that Chase’s books aren’t the kind of books where the reader has to power through approximately 50 or more pages before the story finally starts to get interesting, especially considering the fact that her books are all less than 300 pages long. That’s something I’ve really come to appreciate about Chase’s books since in addition to all of the books that I’ve reviewed in roughly the past three to four months, possibly longer than that, I’ve also been reading the book The Swan Gondola by Timothy Schaffert so I can review it as well. I’m currently seventy pages into the book, and I’m just now finally starting to get into the book.

Cinder: Get ready to see the story of Cinderella like you’ve never seen it before (My thoughts on book #1 in The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer)

Let me start off this review by saying that much like Veronica Roth’s Divergent, Cinder is a book that I’ve wanted to read for a very long time. Thankfully, it didn’t completely disappoint me like Divergent did. I’d even say that Cinder actually exceeded my expectations. That being said, I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t aware of the fact that Cinder is the first book in a series called The Lunar Chronicles until very recently when I saw reviews for the third book in the series, Cress, and a review for the fifth and final book in the series, Winter, on one of my favorite book review channels on YouTube, Bookables. With that said, here are my thoughts on Cinder.

One of the reasons why I’ve always wanted to read Cinder is because I’ve always been a huge fan of retellings or “reimaginings” of fairy tales. I love the movie Hoodwinked, but admittedly I still need to see Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil. I’m also a huge fan of the TV shows Once Upon a Time and Grimm. Much like those examples of fairytale retellings, Cinder is an awesome new take on the story of Cinderella. Another reason why I love this book so much is because I’m also a fan of science fiction books, TV shows, and movies. This story definitely contains some elements of science fiction given the fact that the character Cinder is a cyborg and people apparently live on the moon in the Lunar Chronicles world.

Linh Cinder, who’s usually simply referred to as “Cinder” in the book, is a very fun and likable character. I love how she really has a tendency to be sarcastic. At the same time, she’s definitely a character that has a lot of heart and compassion for others, despite the fact that her stepmother, Linh Adri, and her stepsister, Linh Pearl, are both quite mean to her. Cinder clearly cares a lot about her other stepsister, Linh Peony, who was also a great character. I was definitely very sad about the fact that Peony died after she contracted the letumosis plague.

The interaction between Cinder and Dr. Erland as they worked together throughout the book to try and find a cure for the letumosis plague was a lot of fun to read, and one of my favorite aspects of the book. I’m really hoping that Dr. Erland will be featured in the other books in The Lunar Chronicles series in some capacity. The fact that the citizens of New Bejing were dealing with the threat of a plague definitely added a really interesting element to the story and created some very compelling drama in the story as well, with Peony and Prince Kai’s father, Emperor Rikan, sadly both dying from the plague.

Overruled: Good news, Everybody! Emma Chase is back with a new book series, and I couldn’t be happier. :) (My thoughts on Book #1 in The Legal Briefs series by Emma Chase)

Right off the bat, I have to say that I really wish that I had read Overruled a lot sooner. I got it on Amazon as soon as it was released back in April of 2015, but I didn’t read it until now. That being said, I loved this book so much that I ended up listening to the entire audiobook version of Overruled in less than a day when I read it this past Tuesday. I immediately got sucked into the story, and I quickly became determined to finish the book before I went to bed that night. I’ve seen a number of people who do book reviews on YouTube describe various books as being “book crack” before, and I’d definitely say that this book was definitely “book crack” for me. A line that I’ve used in the past to describe my enjoyment of various books is, “This book is more addictive than cigarettes”, and this is definitely a book that I would use that description to describe what I thought of it.

Emma Chase has definitely become one of my favorite authors, and one of the main reasons why she has become one of my favorite authors is due to the fact that a lot of her books are written at least partially, if not entirely, from the guy’s point of view. That’s one of the reasons why I say Chase’s writing has often felt really fresh to me. Writing romance novels from the guy’s point of view isn’t something that I saw writers doing with romance novels until I discovered Emma Chase’s Tangled series. I’ve been a huge fan of romance novels for years, but there’s no denying that it’s a genre that’s full of clichés and is rather lacking in originality. By writing a lot of her books from the guy’s point of view, I feel like Chase is really offering people something new.

Being a guy, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I don’t fit the target audience for romance novels, but I still love them. I’ve always been a real sucker for romance novels and movies that are romantic comedies, because I’ve definitely always been a bit of a hopeless romantic. However, when it comes to Emma Chase’s books and the fact that she has written quite a few books from the guy’s point of view, it really makes it easier for me personally to relate the protagonists of her books compared to a lot of the protagonists of other romance novels out there. Plus, I feel like she really does a great job of capturing the way men think with her writing.

When it comes to the overall writing for the book, I love this book almost as much as I loved Tangled, which is definitely my favorite book in the Tangled series. If you’d like to read my review for Tangled, you can read that here. That being said, despite the fact that I didn’t like this book quite as much as I loved Tangled, I’m not sure that I would call Tangled “book crack” for me personally. I didn’t get so sucked into it that I decided to devote almost an entire day pretty much just to reading Tangled like I did with this book; that being said, there’s probably always going to be a special place in my heart for Tangled.