Review: Darken The Stars by Amy A. Bartol

Darken The Stars by Amy A. Bartol

Book 3 of the Kricket Series

Kyon Ensin finally has what he’s always wanted: possession of Kricket Hollowell, the priestess who foresees the future. Together, their combined power will be unrivaled. Kricket, however, doesn’t crave the crown of Ethar—she has an unbreakable desire to live life on her own terms, a life that she desperately wants to share with her love, Trey Allairis.

As conspiracies rage in the war for Ethar, Kricket’s so-called allies want to use her as a spy. Even those held closest cannot be trusted—including Astrid, her sister, and Giffen, a member of a mysterious order with a hidden agenda. But Kricket’s resolve will not allow her to be used as anyone’s pawn, even as the Brotherhood sharpens its plans to cut out her heart.

As the destiny prophesied by her mother approaches, Kricket will backtrack through her fiery future to reshape it. For she knows one thing above all else: the only person she can truly count on is herself.

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I received this e-ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Please excuse me if nothing I write here make sense because right now my thoughts are a huge blubbering mess.I finished the book and when I reached the last page and read the last sentence, my reaction was literally 'What? IS THIS BOOK MISSING A PAGE OR SOMETHINGS?' I should probably start this interview though by saying how much of a fan of Amy Bartol's I am, whether be it of her amazing Premonition series or the books from her Kricket series, I love everything she writes and if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know how much of I love her works. 

That being said, it makes me really sad to give this book such a low rating - 2.5-3/5 stars. Why you may ask? 

Throughout the whole book, I was seriously confused and had absolutely no idea what was going on. Really. I feel like Kricket is jumping back and forth between Kyon and Trey, and I have absolutely no idea what to think. You know how usually when you read a book with two male main characters competing for one female character's attention, you will have an obvious favourite right? 

Usually, at the back of the mind you already know who you want the female character to end up with.But no, not in this series. For the first two books of the series, I really wanted Kricket to end up with Trey and I was so sure she was going to end up with him, until I read Darken The Stars, and BAM now I'm in an absolute mess and I've no idea what to think.

So basically this series starts of with this girl named Kricket, who is actually from this planet called Ethar but her parents brought her to Earth to protect her but they've supposedly died, leaving her an orphan. One day, she meets Trey and his group of military guys (their called Cavars in the book) and they end up kidnapping her to bring her back to Ethar to face her crimes because her mother was from Almeeda and ran away with Kricket's father, who was from Rafe. Now let me explain about the houses of Ethar: Ethar is split up into several houses, the main ones being Almeeda and Rafe. They're not just any two houses, no they're sworn enemies. 

Anyway, so there's a prophecy that one house will fall and one will rule all, blah blah blah (you know, the usual.)So anyway, Trey brings Kricket back to Ethar and of course, they fall in love despite all the complications they face.  One of them being Kyon.And this is where it gets complicated. So Kyon is from the other house, Almeeda and wants to bring Kricket to Almeeda because she has gifts- she's a soothsayer, and later in discovers that she has the gift of precognition as well. And that's not all! Kyon also wants to make her his consort, and yes, it's as creepy as it sounds.

OKAY, so now that I've given you guys the background information to the story, especially for those of you who haven't read the first book, let me get down to the actual review of Darken The Stars.My first thoughts when I finished the book: it wasn't terrible, though the plot was as confusing as anything. The thing that I had the most problem with was Kricket's 'love life', we could call it. 

She keeps jumping from one guy from another and it's really confusing me.I get that she doesn't know who to choose and all, but she does rash things in the book without any explanation that makes absolutely no sense to me.Darken The Stars starts off with how Kricket was captured by Kyon, and he brings her to his island-resort thing so they can have private time and get to know each other. 

She tries not to fall in love with him, as she loves Trey (or at least that's what we thought) but inevitably, she falls in love with him and becomes his consort, EVEN THOUGH she's promised herself to Trey and even though she and Trey didn't have the ceremony, they were as good as married.

 But no, Kricket ends up SLEEPING with Kyon and falls in love with him, and later on when she meets up with Trey (because she's on this undercover mission to assassinate Kyon's father but that point is irrelevant at the moment) she asks him of one things in case she doesn't make it, and I quote:

"PROMISE ME YOU'll PROTECT KYON AFTER I KILL EXCELSIOR"

I mean, come on woman for the love of dear god why would you say that to him? I was practically screaming "You love Trey god-dammit woman what's wrong with you!" the whole time and came very close to wanting to bang my head against my laptop screen.  

Kricket was basically transformed from a very likable main character to this whiny, indecisive girl that quite frankly really irritated me. And what's more important - Amy took away one of the parts i love the most about the book - the Cavars: Trey, Jax and Wayra. 

Their interactions and conversations with each other and Kricket was one of the things I loved the most about the first two books, and yet they barely appeared in this third book even though I'm pretty sure they play a major part in the story! 

I can only pray and hope that this is not the last book, because if it is I swear I'm going to become a monk and run away to the far far east because I'll never be able to face life again if this book doesn't have a fourth instalment. 

Waiting On A Wednesday: Never Never by Colleen Hoover

Never Never by Colleen Hoover

Book 1 of the Never Never series

Best friends since they could walk. In love since the age of fourteen. 
Complete strangers since this morning. 

He'll do anything to remember. She'll do anything to forget. 

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So it's been a while since I've done one of these- actually, it feels like forever. Schools just started and I have to say that it feelings like I'm approaching my impending doom. Anyway, back to today's book for my Waiting On A Wednesday post: Never Never by Colleen Hoover.

I picked up this book a while back and read it with a little reading group on Goodreads, and I have to say I have kind of mixed-feelings about it. Basically, this book is about this boy named Silas and a girl named Charlie. They've been in love since they were young (the best friends turned boyfriend type of thing) and then one day, poof, they forget everything and can't remember what happened, who they are and who the other person is. They become total strangers, but for some reason, even with their memory gone they're still drawn together so this book is about how they try to find out what's happened. (Spoiler alert: this is only part 1! There's a part 2 to this book that came out not too long ago if I'm not mistaken.)

The thing about this book is that while I love the premisis of the story, the actual thing wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Maybe because I built it up in my head and set a such high expectation for it, but whatever it was, the book just didn't really do it for me. It's not a terrible book, and I don't dislike it, it's just that I don't love it.

I promise I'll do a full review of this book soon - I know I've been saying this about all the books I talk about but I promise I'll get down to it someday. In the mean time... *whips out popcorn and laptop and starts binge watching Freaks and Geeks* 

Review: 99 Days by Katie Cotugno

99 Days by Katie Cotugno


Synopsis:
Day 1: Julia Donnelly eggs my house my first night back in Star Lake, and that’s how I know everyone still remembers everything—how I destroyed my relationship with Patrick the night everything happened with his brother, Gabe. How I wrecked their whole family. Now I’m serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college, and be done.

Day 4: A nasty note on my windshield makes it clear Julia isn’t finished. I’m expecting a fight when someone taps me on the shoulder, but it’s just Gabe, home from college and actually happy to see me. “For what it’s worth, Molly Barlow,” he says, “I’m really glad you’re back.”

Day 12: Gabe got me to come to this party, and I’m actually having fun. I think he’s about to kiss me—and that’s when I see Patrick. My Patrick, who’s supposed to be clear across the country. My Patrick, who’s never going to forgive me.
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I highly recommend this book if

a) You are into brother-brother love triangles

b) You enjoy characters that never, ever, ever learn from mistakes and repeat them over and over again without remorse.

I DNF’d this book at around 50% because I just couldn’t take it anymore. 99 Days is about a girl named Molly, who slept with her ex-boyfriend Patrick’s brother Gabe very shortly after they broke up (within a day of their breaking up if I remember correctly) and she tells her mother about it, who then goes on to publish a book about it, humiliating Molly and making everyone hate her. So then she moves on to go to boarding school for senior year, without telling her friends or anything. The book starts off when Molly returns, only to find that everyone in the town hates her, even her best friend (no surprise!) and the only exception to this is Gabe, her ex-boyfriend's brother. 

Gabe is the only one that doesn't hate her, and as we find out later in the book, has had a crush on her for the longest time! And let's not forget he's the one that slept with Molly very shortly after she broke up with his brother. But I'll leave that for now and move on. 

Let’s talk about Molly. She is by far, the most stupendously irritating character I’ve ever read about and if I ever met her in real life, the first thing I’d do is give her 3 tight slaps across the face. Despite the fact that I had a lot of sympathy for her during the first half of the book and even empathised with her, come the second half and I came so close to wanting to reach in and give her a good shake! So she comes back to town to find that everyone hates her, and in the beginning I feel sympathy for her, I really do. But as the story goes on, I found myself wanting to slam my head against the wall repeatedly and slap her as hard as I could? Why the sudden change? Let me explain it. 

So she cheated on Patrick, the boy she has known since forever. It's not something small, but it happens. And when something like this happens, the norm tends to be you apologize, feel remorse, learn from the mistake to improve yourself. But this doesn't happen at all in the book! Molly acknowledges she cheated on Patrick, she takes the consequences yet not once do we see that she feels remorse!  But then I told myself, it's okay, just look past it. 

And I did until I came to the next part that made me put down the book. After getting together with Gabe and having the perfect boyfriend (Loving, caring, with absolute adoration) she goes and freaking cheats on Gabe with Patrick! I mean, are you kidding me? Do you never learn from your mistakes woman? The main character is selfish, self-centred and utterly weak and helpless! 

This book turned out to be very dissapointing, which is sad because it could have been a really good book had it not been for the repeated cheating! I know that cheating is part of the book, but you can only go so far before it gets irritating. I'd give this book a 2.5 stars out of 5. 

Review: Sea Of Stars by Amy A. Bartol

Sea of Stars by Amy A. Bartol

Book 2 of the Kricket Series

Synopsis: 
Eighteen-year-old Kricket Hollowell was looking for her place in the world when she discovered that the universe was bigger—and more dangerous—than she had ever dreamed. Now, whisked across space to the planet Ethar, Kricket learns that her genetic ability to see the future makes her a sought-after commodity…and the catalyst for war between her star-crossed parents’ clans. According to Alameedan prophecy, one house will rise to power and the other will be completely wiped out, and Kricket’s precognition is believed to be the weapon that will tip the scales.

A target of both the Rafe and the Alameeda houses, Kricket finds protection—and a home—in the arms of Trey, her Etharian bodyguard-turned-boyfriend. But her visions of what’s to come disturb her deeply, especially since she must discover whether the gift of foresight will allow her to rewrite the future, or if her fate is as immovable as the stars.
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Here's the thing about me and sequels: either they work for me or they don't. And this one kind of didn't work for me, much to my disappointment. If you've read my previous review on the first book of this series, Under Different Stars, then you'll know how much I was looking forward to this book. I love Amy's writing and I'll read practically anything she writes. Her grocery lists, shopping lists, hell I'll even read the words she writes on the paper when she plays hangman.

But that being said this book was a bit of a disappointment to me. It wasn't terrible, but it just didn't give me that same wow-what-just-happened feeling that I had after I finished reading Under Different Stars. The thing I really loved in the first book was how in depth Kricket and Trey's romantic relationship was described; how you could sense the frustration between the two of them that they couldn't act on their feelings towards each other due to other people, the anguish when Kricket was handed over to Reagant (forgive if I got the name wrong it's been a while since I last read UDS) and also there's a bit of this quirky humour that I really liked!

But in Sea Of Stars, there was none of that! It's mostly made out of Trey and Kricket making out a lot, which irritated me big time. There's none of that sweet romance that was present in the first book, it just felt like it went right from "Let's try out this relationship 'cause I really like you" to "Hey! Let's make out every 5 minutes!" By the end of the book I came really close to tearing my eyes and hair out, and wanted to scream in frustration! I normally really love Amy Bartol's work, but I've no idea what happened in this book *sad face*

There were a whole bunch of things that happened throughout the book and quite a lot of action scenes as well, however I didn't find them particularly striking and to be honest, by the end of the book I had forgotten what had happened exactly and felt kind of meh. I know everyone else gave this book stunning reviews, and I'm just like "HUH?" Maybe it's just me *sighs* Oh well. I still have high hopes for the third upcoming book though, Darken The Stars, so hopefully it'll get better! I'm so in love with the first book I just don't have it in me to give up on this series.