dearrivarie: March 2018

| ISBN: 978-1492635857 | Pages: 528 |

Publication Date: March 20, 2018 | Source: Sourcebooks/ARC

| Rating: 5 out of 5 stars |
★★★★★

In The Bone Witch, Tea mastered resurrection―now she's after revenge...
No one knows death like Tea. A bone witch who can resurrect the dead, she has the power to take life...and return it. And she is done with her self-imposed exile. Her heart is set on vengeance, and she now possesses all she needs to command the mighty daeva. With the help of these terrifying beasts, she can finally enact revenge against the royals who wronged her―and took the life of her one true love.
But there are those who plot against her, those who would use Tea's dark power for their own nefarious ends. Because you can't kill someone who can never die...
War is brewing among the kingdoms, and when dark magic is at play, no one is safe.

I. AM. IN. LOVE.

The Heartforger was one of my most anticipated releases for this and I am so glad it's finally out in the world for everyone to read. If you picked up The Bone Witch and was not a huge fan because it's heavily based on world building and lacked in action - pick up the sequel because this is where the action is at!

Anyway, this was everything I wanted in the sequel and I'm so glad that there is another book in this series even though I'm not a huge fan of them. (but why do I have to wait another year????)

As with the first novel, we get a dual story-line: one follows present day Tea as she tells her story to the bard and the other is her account of the past. Again, I enjoyed this format, but there were times where it frustrated me when the story-line switched. After the ending of The Bone Witch, I wanted to know more about the present day, but we only get little snippets as the main focus is still on the past.

"That is the nature of grief. But to grieve means that you have loved. To love opens up the possibility for grief."

I was anticipating a lot more development and action and I definitely got that with the sequel. There are so many things happening in the "past" story-line that continue to pave the path towards Tea's exile that leads to where she is in the present. Believe me when I say that so much happens and I wasn't expecting half of them.

"Most people reject the truth, Fox. Lies are sweet to the palate, but the truth is often spat out, bitter and rancid."

Additionally, the fangirling that took place was too much for my heart. I loved Tea and Kalen and I'm so glad we got to see the start of their relationship along with their present-day relationship and it's just so cute! We still don't know how Kalen died and I know that nothing in the world can prepare me for that, but at least Tea was able to bring him back. Part of me wanted more than the "being mean because of a crush" trope for Kalen but when he mumbled his confession I think my heart melted.

"When I die, at least I shall die knowing my eyes were open, looking at all there was to see."

Along with my new favorite power couple, I loved seeing some of my favorite people again from Khalad, Likh, Zoya and Shadi, and of course - Fox. Rin Chupeco has created such an amazing group of diverse characters that have a great dynamic. I adore Likh so much, he's a precious flower that must be protected at all costs and Zoya and Shadi as a couple are just absolute goals.

In terms of the present-day story - it was so exciting to see Tea's revenge in action from the battles to seeing old friends again. I have so many emotions that it's hard to be coherent, but we do get to start to see the overlap of past and present and that just makes me all the more excited for Book 3.

A huge thank you to Sourcebooks for giving me an ARC - I literally almost started crying when I opened the package and saw this beauty in real life.

(Also a big thank you to my parents for helping me to take pictures of quotes cause I left my copy at home and needed quotes for this review....)

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Antigoddess by Kendare Blake

| ISBN: 978-0765334435 | Pages: 336 |

Publication Date: September 10, 2013 | Source: Own/Ebook

| Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars |

★★★☆

Old Gods never die…
Or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.
Desperately seeking the cause of their slow, miserable deaths, Athena and Hermes travel the world, gathering allies and discovering enemies both new and old. Their search leads them to Cassandra—an ordinary girl who was once an extraordinary prophetess, protected and loved by a god.
These days, Cassandra doesn’t involve herself in the business of gods—in fact, she doesn’t even know they exist. But she could be the key in a war that is only just beginning.
Because Hera, the queen of the gods, has aligned herself with other of the ancient Olympians, who are killing off rivals in an attempt to prolong their own lives. But these anti-gods have become corrupted in their desperation to survive, horrific caricatures of their former glory. Athena will need every advantage she can get, because immortals don’t just flicker out.
Every one of them dies in their own way. Some choke on feathers. Others become monsters. All of them rage against their last breath.
The Goddess War is about to begin.

I have this terrible habit of becoming excited for a series and just pushing it off forever. This is a prime example of that habit...Antigoddess came out in 2013 and I'm finally reading it in 2018.

Coming out of this, I have some mixed feelings but they're leaning more towards the positive so that's good right? We start off following Athena, the goddess of wisdom and strategy, as she is slowly becoming consumed by the owl feathers growing inside of her. I don't know about you, but that's a terrible way to go. She's accompanied by Hermes, whose body is literally eating him from the inside out, and they need to find a way to reverse their dying fast.

On the other side of the story, we have Cassandra who is the reborn prophetess from the Trojan Wars with no recollection of her past. She just so happens to be dating Aidan, who...spoiler alert is also known as Apollo and he is doing everything he can to make sure none of the other Olympians harm her again.

“Fate was the only lesson a god needed to learn. It was their only hard limit.”

Kendare Blake creates this masterful story around the demise of the great Grecian gods and their mad scramble to cling to their fragile immortality. The Olympians have become divided and are willing (some at least) to go through drastic measures to ensure their survival while others (namely Athena and Hermes) just want to find a way to stop whatever is happening. The whole dynamic that is creating is incredibly interesting and well fleshed out that both satisfies and leaves readers wondering.

“For the record I don't believe in Fate. I believe that the pieces have been placed. The ending hasn't been written yet.”

I'll be honest and admit that I was not either Athena nor Cassandra's biggest fan. Athena is very driven which matches her personality of course, but she was driven to the point of becoming insensitive to who gets hurt in the process to ensure her survival. However, she does redeem herself eventually...it got to point where I just wasn't sure how I felt towards her character. I was more indifferent towards Cassandra, but where she is at the end of the novel hints at propelling her character forward in the sequel so I am very excited for that.

My favorite characters were the ones on the "side" - Hermes, Aidan/Apollo, and Odysseus (not a fan of the Athena x Odysseus thing that's growing). My point being...Kendare Blake creates a great cast of characters that make the story entertaining even if the ones in the main roles don't exactly appear likable.

This was a good start to the trilogy - enough to make me want to continue reading. The author incorporates her knack for creating horror scenes with vivid descriptions of tragic deaths and the slow and painful demise of each Greek god/goddess. Hopefully the main characters will start to grow on me but if not, at least I still have some of the side characters.

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Black Dress: 7th Mini Album

| Release Date: February 22, 2018 |

Rating: 5 out 5 stars

★★★★★

I can't believe that this is CLC's seventh mini album and it saddens me that they haven't won a single show yet...BUT they still work so hard to release such amazing songs that literally slay my existence.

Black Dress

Guys...this song literally made me deceased. The last time I woke up early and excited because of a music video drop was BTOB's Missing You (I'm obviously not a CUBE stan at all...) This title track screams fierce with such an amazing beat. CLC once again deviates from their last concept (Where Are You). The music is definitely more Hobgoblin-esque but the presentation is more mature as opposed to rebellious - it's just pure gold.

Like That

I watched an interview CLC did and they described Like That as an EDM song. Honestly, I don't have that much knowledge about the different styles of music but the beat of this is literally so good. I also believe that Eunbin wrote some of the lyrics along with Yeeun which just makes it so good. A part of me wants to think that this is connected to Like This from their Free'sm album but I haven't checked the lyrics to see if there are any correlations.

Distance

Fun fact that I learned from YouTube - if you listen to this sped up, it sounds so cool (confirmed). Distance is a slower paced song but has all the upbeat elements that is in Black Dress. It's so fun to listen to even with a slower tempo and I'm just a sucker for Yeeun's rapping skills.

To the Sky

This was pre-released in February and at first I was confused because this sounds like their pre-Hobgoblin era tracks which lean towards the cute girl group concept. However, when CUBE released a dance practice, it's impossible to not like this song. All the members look so happy while dancing and they were having so much fun. By including this track within this mini album, CLC just demonstrates their versatility with various contrasting concepts.

7th

This was described as a "bossa nova" song by CLC in the interview that I mentioned earlier which once again I know nothing about. It's got this groovy Hawaiian vibe that just makes it such a feel-good song and a great conclusion to the album (if you're not shuffling through).

So this is a relatively new format of reviewing Kpop albums - let me know if this is something you'd like to see in the future. I'll definitely need to do some research on music styles but that'll be fun. Anyway, if you haven't listened to this yet, I highly recommend it (of course) and fingers crossed CLC will win their first trophy with Black Dress!

Purchase on iTunes:

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The Smallest Part by Amy Harmon

| ISBN: 978-1979819503 | Pages: 325 |

Publication Date: February 13, 2018 | Source: Own

| Rating: 5 out of 5 stars |
★★★★★

It was a big lie. The biggest lie she’d ever told. It reverberated through her head as she said it, ringing eerily, and the girl behind her eyes—the girl who knew the truth—screamed, and her scream echoed along with the lie.
“Are you in love with Noah, Mercedes?” Cora asked. “I mean . . . I know you love him. You’ve been friends forever. We all have. But are you in love with him?”
If it had been anyone else—anyone—Mercedes would have stuck out her chest, folded her skinny arms, and let her feelings be known. She would have claimed him. But it was Cora. Brave, beautiful, broken Cora, and Cora loved Noah too.
So Mercedes lied.
And with that lie, she lost him. With that lie, she sealed her fate.
She was the best friend, the bridesmaid, the godmother, the glue. She was there for the good times and the bad, the ups and the downs, the biggest moments and the smallest parts. And she was there when it all came crashing down.
This is the tale of the girl who didn’t get the guy.

This review is so long overdue...I think I was promising to have it up a week after it released and now it's March...

When Amy Harmon announced that she was releasing a new novel, I was excited before even knowing what it was about. It wasn't until reading that I realized The Smallest Part was connected to two of her other books The Law of Moses and The Song of David which was really exciting cause I didn't even piece together the characters until a particular moment.

"We are more than just a collection of bones, cobbled together by God or by eons of evolution. We have souls. We have purpose. We're more."

As you can tell from the synopsis, we have an interesting love triangle situation going on and I wasn't sure how Amy Harmon would address this. We understand from the get-go that Mercedes and Cora both love Noah but Mercedes lies so that Cora can have her shot at happily ever after.

"It may be the smallest part, but you'll kill it. Sometimes it's the smallest part that steals the show."

I really want to avoid spoilers but I'm just going to assume generically that we know who the main character is and who her love interest is...because there are things I just need to discuss. Starting off: the way the love triangle was treated...well that was just heartbreaking and cruel because we were literally only like 50 (not even) pages through when tragedy strikes.

"Words are like souls. Soundless, even shapeless. But full of substance."

From then on, it's just a whirlwind of emotions that only Amy Harmon is capable to creating. While I didn't love Mercedes and Noah as much as I have the author's previous couples (there's a spoiler folks), I did like how the "second chance at love" was portrayed. Despite that, there are moments that felt almost unfair to Cora's memory (spoiler again) that I didn't really know how to react to.

"They moved silently in each other's orbits, solitary planets in a lonely galaxy."

At the same time, I wanted Mercedes to end up single. We get the whole punchline of "This is the story about the girl who didn't get the guy" but she does in the end? It would have been a good girl power statement but nonetheless my heart is saying that as long as the characters are happy - it's all that matters.

This was definitely a whirlwind to read about from the unexpected confessions, random reunions, watching the adorable baby Gia grow up, to being reunited with old friends (Moses in particular). I think my biggest takeaway despite some conflicting thoughts on the story is always the same - I loved the writing. Each book I read by this author always leaves my heart full and my mind enriched.