Revolving stars

 While packing the house a few days ago, I found this set of Beginning Readers that was hidden in one of the cupboards. I flipped through the set of books and they are very decodable for toddlers who have started learning the CVC words! Hunter is able to read some of the books by himself, with the exception of tricky words such as "the". I find that it is a good supplement for the phonics class and will be continuing to practise reading with Hunter using this set.

In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the carnival, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures—if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live. All Mallory knows of The City is that her father—and every other witch there—fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it's only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable.While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. Ther...

1. The Oathbreaker's shadow by Amy McColloch F ifteen-year-old Raim lives in a world where you tie a knot for every promise that you make. Break that promise and you are scarred for life, and cast out into the desert. Raim has worn a simple knot around his wrist for as long as he can remember. No one knows where it came from, and which promise of his it symbolises, but he barely thinks about it at all—not since becoming the most promising young fighter ever to train for the elite Yun guard. But on the most important day of his life, when he binds his life to his best friend (and future king) Khareh, the string bursts into flames and sears a dark mark into his skin. Scarred now as an oath-breaker, Raim has two options: run, or be killed. I love the way the world unfolds as you read the book. I know I'm a suck for alternate world universe. I wish there is more of a history behind the story, like the Hunger Games series, because there were lots of description at the first part...

Lunchtime today, I was chatting with my colleague and I ending up talking about this morbid experiment that I watched when I was in university. The experiment is called the Milgram Experiment. You can read more about it here.  http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram. I thought that people might be interested in some of these experiments that I have read about. Extreme isolation experiment by Donald Hebb http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/donald-o-hebb-effects-extreme-isolation And another list of 10 experiments http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today It's actually quite scary to think about the behaviours of humans will change in certain situations. If you are interested, there is this book called Malicious Intent by Kathryn Fox which mentioned about the Stockholm syndrome and the effects of sensory deprivation.

It's quite interesting to see how people change throughout the years. The people that you thought will stick with you might end up being the ones that desert you when you need them the most. Yet, those whom you seldom contact might be the ones who are willing to help. I was bored when I went facebook surfing, and I realised that many of my acquaintances are either in MOE or doing those OTOT jobs. It is really quite unexpected, but I guess to each their own huh. All of us have our own paths to walk, and the decisions are not forced upon us. I am still reeling from Philippa Gregory's The Queen's Fool. I must admit that I like her historical fiction. It may not be entirely historically accurate but she is quite gifted in spinning out stories and theories. The main lead is Hannah Green, a Jewish girl who has to hide her heritage in order to survive in a country full of heresy.  She and her father are escaping from the Spanish Inquisition and looking for a better life ...

Richard’s second book, The Thieves of Faith, is about St. Michael Pierre, who has lost his wife due to cancer, and because of her (and the influence of his friend, Genevieve), decided to retrace his roots and search for his family. Little did he know that he was going to be dragged back into the world of thievery and deception, where not just he, but his family and friends, was in peril. In this book, Julian Zevira, the leader of a (very rich cult) is looking for a mysterious box hidden somewhere deep in Russia , and he kidnapped Michael’s father to blackmail Michael to search for it. The theme of family love and hatred is very strong in this book. Julian is supposedly the child of Genevieve but in the later part of the book, the reader would discover that Julian is actually the son of a madman and another woman who had sought the help of Genevieve to bring him up as her own. Genevieve’s love for the mother made her take care of her as well as her son. He also has a brother wh...

I honestly love the concept, but I can't say the same about the writing style and the contents itself. It caught my eye as there is a gaming element to it. Rick, the male protagonist, is the boy who runs the maze (a virtual reality game) as a tester. His dad is the one who created this game, and he is not allowed to let anyone win the game. If it happened, both of them would be kicked out into the polluted world (outside of the complex that they are living) and they will die. The story is under developed, and there was no clear explanation of all the happenings. Why is the maze created? And how do they change the items that they looted from the Maze to reality? Why are there basic rations? Who are the other people who can go around in the polluted world while Rick can't? There are just so many unanswered questions. I didn't like the ending either. Everything was just so abrupt and it just ended. I hope there is a sequel and maybe that will explain things bette...

Othermoon is the second book of the Otherkin series by Nina Berry. Btw, I borrowed this book from Clementi Library :) Synopsis: Everyone has secrets. When Dez rescued a boy, Caleb, from a cage, she discovered secrets she never knew she possessed, Now she's sure she's found the place where she belongs. With the otherkin - and with Caleb. But as the barriers between the mortal world and Othersphere fall, a wall rises between Dez and Caleb, leaving her fiercest enemy her only friend ...and maybe something more. Now Dez must make a devastating choice: keep the love of her life, or save the otherkin from annihilation... This book really focuses more on Dez herself and the other characters are quite flat. I think a spinoff is in order if this keeps up. They are still fighting against Ximon and this time round, Lazar (Ximon's son) wanted to join their gang to pitch against his dad. It also delves into a little background of Lazar, which makes Dez (and the readers) sympath...

Otherkin is the first book in the series of the same name, and even though I usually do not touch paranormal YA, I thought I would give it a try since I like the book cover. Yes, I know, I'm a visual creature. The book cover reminds me of The Life of Pi Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Desdemona Gray doesn’t even bother with crushes on cute boys now that she’s forced to wear a hard plastic back brace all day.  What guy would want to literally have to knock on a girl to be let in?  So she squashes down every impossible desire until an uber-awkward brush with a boy brings out all her frustration and she changes…into a tiger.  In that bewildering moment, she is captured by Ximon, the leader of a fanatical group hell-bent on wiping out the five remaining tribes of shape-shifters, known as the otherkin. With help from a handsome, mysterious fellow captive named Caleb, she escapes and goes on the run, finding allies and learning the truth behind the legends of wizards...

Synopsis: The countdown clock reads ten days until the end of the world. The citizens are organized. Everyone’s been notified and assigned a duty. The problem is . . . no one knows for sure how it will end. Energy-hungry Mages are the most likely culprit. They travel toward a single location from every corner of the continent. Fueled by the two suns, each Mage holds the power of an element: air, earth, fire, metal, water, or ether. They harness their powers to draw energy from the most readily available resource: humans. Ashara has been assigned to the Ethereal task force, made up of human ether manipulators and directed by Loken, a young man with whom she has a complicated past. Loken and Ashara bond over a common goal: to stop the Mages from occupying their home and gaining more energy than they can contain. But soon, they begin to sus...

I have been waiting to read this! This is the sequel of Crave, which I have read some time back. I did a review here . The mystery of Shay's long illness has finally been solved: She is half vampire, and her body would fail without Gabriel's blood. There is only one place he believes she would be safe - with his vampire family. But when he brings her to them, Gabriel is shocked to find that they consider Shay to be an abomination not belonging in either world, humans or vampire. According to Gabriel's family, Shay should be left to die. Now Gabriel must make the most difficult decision of his long life: defy the people's closest to him or save the life of his beloved. The plot is predictable. I mean, who would think that Gabriel would choose his family over Shay? There will be no story to speak of then. However, there is an interesting twist when Shay's mum revealed that Ernest actually got Gret pregnant when she was a human, which was why she killed herself...

I love Tudor history; that I do not deny. This book started with a fairytale-like bubble, and it slowly disintegrated into nothing. I knew for a start that the ending is a sorrowful one, but I didn't expect myself to like the character. I was in love with the idea that Catalina and Arthur was in love with each other, and when he died halfway through the book, I was aghast. Her life no longer sparkled, and all the things she did was with calculation and conviction. The latter part of the book was a tad disappointing. The scenes jumped too fast for those who are not schooled in Tudor knowledge to know what is going on. I would prefer to have a longer and more elaborated slow ending. I silently hoped that Catalina would be able to die and meet her beloved soon after his death, but it was not to be. I would say that some of the contents are purely speculation, but the facts are there too. I think it is a good read for those who love historical fiction and lack background to Tudor...

A very short book, IMO. It is written from Warner's POV, and it gives us a little more insight about him than Shatter me. It seems like quite a few people got won over by him after reading this book, but I think it is still too early to decide. I want to see Adam's POV too! To summarise, everyone has a rotten childhood, including Warner, even though he has a dad who is in control of the Reestablishment. The book also portrays Warner in a more positive light than Shatter me. He isn't the cold and cruel guy that Juliette and Adam think he is. Ultimately, he is as helpless as anyone else out there. I would like to know how come he is so obsessed about Juliette though. Destroy me did not really answer that question. >.< Okays.. On to the quest to find Unravel me~~

The first of a trilogy, Shatter me is a YA fiction book that has a dystopian plot. Personally, I love dystopian plots, and looking at the hit rates of the movies that came out recently, I think many people do too. The book started off with the thoughts of Juliette Ferrars, and then it switched from a first person view to third person view. I love the way how it started, (it's like the starting of a film) and then progressively, you get to understand the world more and more. The part that I don't like about it is that the description of the world that she was in was too little, and there wasn't much depth to it. More was focused on the feelings of Juliette, and it makes the other characters and other bits of the plot very flat. Despite this, I enjoyed the book a lot, and I can't wait to read the rest of the series. Apparently, 20th Century Fox has purchased the filming rights according to Wiki! It may be just like the hunger games! Where I read the books years befo...

One of another vampire stories that I have been hooked on recently. I realised that there are really a lot of vampire stories on the market recently. Probably due to the twilight saga? Simply to put, this vampire story is a three-way fight among the Old Bloods, New Bloods and the Vampire Hunters. I like the way the plot twists and turns the situations but some of them are just way too cheesy for my liking. Lilith is a bitch who cares more about her heritage than any other things, including her mother. As one of the distinguished family members of the Old Bloods, she is able to get her way most of the times and she intends to keep it that way. But all changes when her half-sister comes into the picture and turning everything upside down. Of course, she didn't know that Cally is her half-sister until they got into a fight and she tasted her blood. Before that, when Cally was transferred from the New Blood School to the Old Blood's, she tried to make Cally as uncomfortable she...

*I have read the second book before the first book, so I have extra background to the plot. The Demon's Lexicon is the first book of the series and from the start, the two brothers, Alan and Nick, are escaping from the magicians who wanted to hunt down their mother, which led them to moving house every few months. This time round, there is a difference; the attack is witnessed by two other people, Mae and Jamie. They were hoping that the two brothers would be able to help them with their trouble, and they all landed in deep shit. And they went trying to crawl out from the pile of shit that they dug into. The best parts of the plot is that they subtly dropped hints throughout the story and wove them altogether at the end. We know that Nick can't tell lies and he doesn't feel much for people, but he does feel for his brother, at least. I love the way how the ending contradicts the beginning, as it shows that demons can have feelings too; albeit a strange way of showing...

The second book in the series. My brother and I have been hunting down this book since Oct, and I finally found it online. OMG. I was captivated by the first book, and now the second. And I can't wait for the third one to be released. Forbidden is a Urban Fantasy (UF) book, and having demons in the city is commonplace. Schools are held anywhere and everywhere, but with regularity. It actually sounds like the future world that we would probably be facing, especially with the budget cuts in the cities. Riley is the only female trapper in the Trapper society, and she has a huge score to settle with the necromancers as she thought that they have forcibly taken her dad to be a deader. It ends up that someone else was behind the scenes, which rounded up the plot considerably. In this book, Riley's relationships with guys took a turn for the worse. All the three guys, in fact. It is a little unsettling that she managed to get rid of the thoughts of Simon so quickly and jumped into...

Synopsis HE MUST RELY ON HIS TALENTS IN THE BEDROOM... Anthony Hamilton cannot help it. The way he looks, the way he lives, his past-it all conspires to make him a man men fear, women desire. His name fills gossip circles in a seemingly endless, lurid drama. But he's never forgotten the only woman he's ever truly wanted-yet could never have. TO MAKE HER FALL IN LOVE. Celia Reece knew Anthony well before he forged his scandalous reputation. The young man she remembers spoke kindly to her, made her laugh, and his devilish good looks always quickened her pulse. But Celia's mother had other designs-designs that didn't include marriage to Anthony. Now, Celia is widowed, and her mother is intent on finding her a new husband. Refusing to let any obstacle stand in his path this time, Anthony sets out to win Celia's heart by using the same skills that made him London's most irresistible rake... The first time I set my eyes on this book, I thought that it would be ano...

Like always, I didn't realise that it is a start to a series until I googled it. I was captivated by the interesting combination => boarding school + magic. There are few books which have such plots, and I'm a sucker for them. In addition, there are Vikings and all the Greek mythology references throughout the book, and who could resist them? So, I picked up the book and brought it home to read. First, I didn't have much common sense when it comes to plots. I like realistic ones as well as unrealistic ones, and this book falls under the unrealistic category. i mean, magic and common sense doesn't match right? I kind of assume that the target audience for the book is maybe like 12-ish, since the phrasings used are simple, and easy to understand. I'm glad because I don't have to read between the lines to catch the meanings (lazy me) The story started with Gwen, the "Gypsy girl" being an outsider in her elite school, and it talks about how she ...

It's a reverse vampire book. I was caught by its synopsis, since I have this fetish for blood and it hits the mark. The story is about this girl, Shay, who is always the 'Sick Girl' in school. She even terms herself as the 'Sick Girl' which is so depressing but true. It's a realistic portrayal of a sick girl in school wanting to be normal but that is where all the realistic parts end. Here comes the interesting part. Her stepfather is a doctor who vows to find a cure for her, giving up his initial research on leukemia to concentrate all his attention on her. It's a little freaky if you think about it. A guy marrying the mother of his patient so that he can better focus on her? That aside, Shay thinks that he is a good stepfather and she only had good words for him, that is, until she discovers his secret. She has been undergoing blood transfusion regularly; albeit a bit more frequently after she started on an alternative blood transfusion treatment whi...