Armchair BEA - Best of 2012

It's the second day of Armchair BEA and everyone is sharing their favorite 2012 reads.  We mentioned them briefly in our intro yesterday.  Today we are going to share just a bit more...

Gallagher Series by Ally Carter - Shel so wants to go to Gallagher Academy to hang out with Cammie, Bex, Liz and Macey







Storm by Brigid Kemmerer - Shel is pretty stingy with her 4 and 5 star ratings.  Storm earned 4.5 stars AND Shel read it twice in one weekend.






Half-Blood by Jennifer Armentrout - Shel found the "smack-talk" she loves in this book.





The Mephisto Covenant by Trinity Faegen - It's not often Shel describes a book as phenomenal.  High praise indeed for the Mephisto Covenant.





Chase in Shadow by Amy Lane - You can't use just a few words to describe the heartbreaking journey that is Chase in Shadow.  Read Bel's review as it packs a powerful punch that compliments the book wonderfully.





The Fault in our Stars by John Green - John Green writes what he writes best.  Angst and Humor for the intelligent teen.








Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson - The Bloggess is Nat's hero for taking her inappropriate and off-the-wall humor and sharing it with the world.

Half-Blood by Jennifer Armentrout

***                                                        

From Spencer Hill Press:            

The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi—pure-bloods—have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals—well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures. Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:

Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden.


Unfortunately, she’s crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn’t her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.

Half-Blood is a tremendous new spin on Greek Mythology, the gods and their descendants. 

The Good:

Half-Blood is engaging and entertaining, full of heartbreak and the struggle to find your place in the world.  Alex's plight drew me in and demanded my complete attention.  The characters are fun and look for the great smack talk between Alex and her archnemisis!

The Bad:

Part of the story is that Half-Bloods that do not play by the Pures' rules or are not proficient fighters are made slaves.  This is bad enough, but the way they are made slaves is that they are given a drug that strips them of all free will and then they are given scars or marks on their foreheads to display their status to the world.  I found this deeply disturbing and it was almost enough to turn me off the book.  Not quite, but it really hit me hard - it is one thing to be made a slave, but to take away someone's mind and will - yeah, I did not like that...

Keep an eye out for the second Covenant book, Pure, releasing April 2, 2012!

~Shel

A Peek In The Biblio-Bin (16)

In My Mailbox (or as we like to call it, A Peek in the Biblio-Bin) is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren. It is a way for bloggers to share what books they have won, received for review, bought from the bookstore, borrowed from the library or friend, etc.

This week Shel gives you a Peek in the Biblio-Bin!

The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi-pure-bloods-have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals-well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures. Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1:Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden. Unfortunately, she's crushing hard on the totally hot pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck

For three years, Alexandria has lived among mortals—pretending to be like them and trying to forget the duty she'd been trained to fulfill as a child of a mortal and a demigod. At seventeen, she's pretty much accepted that she's a freak by mortal standards... and that she'll never be prepared for that duty.

According to her mother, that’s a good thing.

But as every descendant of the gods knows, Fate has a way of rearing her ugly head. A horrifying attack forces Alex to flee Miami and try to find her way back to the very place her mother had warned her she should never return—the Covenant. Every step that brings her closer to safety is one more step toward death… because she's being hunted by the very creatures she'd once trained to kill.

The daimons have found her

What did you find in your mailbox this week?