Uppercase Book Subscription Review!

I've had good and bad luck with subscription boxes lately, but I think I've finally found one I love. 

Uppercase is a monthly YA (young adult) book box. With each subscription you get:

- Incredible Brand New, Hardcover Young Adult Book
- Signed Book or Bookplate Signed by the Author
- 1-2 High-Quality, Exclusive and Custom Bookish Items
- Uppercase Reading Experience with Exclusive Content
- Special Hand-Written and Personalized Note to You

Since I'm a little weary of boxes I had to really check out what they were about before I ordered. Luckily I was able to check out all their past boxes on their website. That's totally awesome because not all boxes let you see what they've done before for some reason. Uppercase has all of their past boxes that they've had since August of '14, so out of thirty something boxes a good majority were books I've read or have on my Goodreads to-read list! Plus the goodies they send are cute! I would totally buy some of the things they send so to have them included for basically free is awesome. Some stuff comes from publishers and others come from small businesses. Remember "Beautiful Book Quotes with Simini Blocker"? She put her art into a 2017 planner you got for one month, but you can also buy her stuff  in their store which is awesome. It helped that they had a first timer promo code for 10% off, which isn't a lot, but it was a nice touch.  Also, if you don't want the goodies, you can do a books only monthly plan which is cheaper and still comes with a signed book.

Other added bonuses, each email comes with a fun gif or pic that made me smile, like this month's your box has shipped:

adorable. 

One thing I like is that they recommend you don't buy any new new books before you get your box in case you buy the one they're sending, so it actually helped my horrible impulse book buying habit...at least until I got the book

So what did I get this month? Here was Feb '17's box:

Cute reusable bag!

Whats inside!?

It's "By Your Side"

 and it's signed! woot!

True love.

and for some reason a 221B Baker Street door key which I loveeeee.

 A friend was just telling me about Novelteas and now I can finally try it. 

OK So the goodies are awesome, but one of my favorite things about Uppercase is the reader connection. In the box, are codes to use to enhance your reading the book. You go to the Uppercase website, enter the code for the part of the book you're on for different awesome bonuses. Example for Feb, the first code gave you an exclusive Youtube video from Kasie West to start you off reading. Plus you get access to the Uppercase book club so you can talk about the book with other YA lit lovers. You can do it from home in your pajamas anytime and they'res no pressure to read it by any date. Lovely! 

A little about the book, via goodreads:

"When Autumn Collins finds herself accidentally locked in the library for an entire weekend, she doesn’t think things could get any worse. But that’s before she realizes that Dax Miller is locked in with her. Autumn doesn’t know much about Dax except that he’s trouble. Between the rumors about the fight he was in (and that brief stint in juvie that followed it) and his reputation as a loner, he’s not exactly the ideal person to be stuck with. Still, she just keeps reminding herself that it is only a matter of time before Jeff, her almost-boyfriend, realizes he left her in the library and comes to rescue her.

Only he doesn’t come. No one does.

Instead it becomes clear that Autumn is going to have to spend the next couple of days living off vending-machine food and making conversation with a boy who clearly wants nothing to do with her. Except there is more to Dax than meets the eye. As he and Autumn first grudgingly, and then not so grudgingly, open up to each other, Autumn is struck by their surprising connection. But can their feelings for each other survive once the weekend is over and Autumn’s old life, and old love interest, threaten to pull her from Dax’s side?"




I found the book to be super predicable but well done. It kind of has the feel of a Sarah Dessen book...you know how it's going to end but it's short and sweet and sometimes you want that kind of story after a long dramatic book.

Overall I'm pretty happy with this box and I can't wait to see what the March pick is going to be! =)



Till next time,
Maggie

February YA Book Reviews!

One plus side to having your hands be useless for a month is I have plenty of time to read all the books. I picked three super popular ones to start the month off which always makes me nervous. I don't know if anyone else is the same way but the more people tell me to read or watch something the more unlikely I am to do that. Since I have nothing but time currently I picked some I wouldn't normally pick and I'm mostly glad with all my choices.  Let's go best to worst! Allons-y!

A Study in Charlotte

By Brittany Cavallaro

At the end of last year I decided to delve into BBC's Sherlock and became obsessed pretttttty quick as I tend to do. So when I saw this at the library I was hoping it would have my favorite aspects of YA and Sherlock in one little package. 

We start the novel meeting Jamie Watson, the great-great-great-grandson of Doctor John Watson. He's attending Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school on a rugby scholarship. Of course somehow Charlotte Holmes, the great-great-granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes also attends this school. Shocker. Charlotte has been groomed since childhood to be the best Holmes she can be: she plays the violin, is a genius, interacts poorly with others and even has a slight drug problem.

Jamie is pretty obsessed with Charlotte but doesn't get the chance to become her friend until some classmates are murdered in imitations of Holmes' most famous mysteries and they're framed for the crimes. The begin to work together to solve the crimes and clear their names.

Sherlock being a girl was one of my favorite parts of the book. She has a great mix of fierce mysterious sherlock-ness and real teen girl problems. I also enjoyed the way Cavallaro played out the story. She says shes a huge Sherlock fan and I think you can tell by the way she writes the crimes. I can't decide weather or not I liked the Watson/Holmes romance? I think I just kept thinking of Johnlock though... I didn't love it anywhere near the BBC show or even the RDJ movies but I liked it well enough that I am excited to read the next book. If you like the Sherlock world I'd encourage you to pick it up. 

4/5 Stars

Sidenote: is there anything better than reading a older book
and finding out the next one comes two week later? Small victories. 

Six of Crows

by Leigh Bardugo

I'm going to be 100% honest, I tried to read this book and put it down because there are SO MANY WEIRD NAMES and the first chapter is basically full of people you never hear of again. So I was trying to keep track only to find out I didn't even need to remember them. Sigh...either way I picked it back up because the ratings and reviews it had really recommended it, so I tried again and I'm glad I did! Once the book gets going it's much easier to keep track of the same people. 

The book starts off in Ketterdam "a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price." The hub is run by a bunch of different gangs, and the main one we focus on are the Dregs. The leader Kaz Brekker is made an offer he can't refuse by a rich merchant to rescue a scientist from the impenetrable ice castle in the north. He assembles basically an Oceans 11 type group that has a range of skills. Each rag-tag member of the crew has complicated histories and personal agendas.  You have:

"A convict with a thirst for revenge
A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager
A runaway with a privileged past
A spy known as the Wraith
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes "

I really liked the book. It had adventure, betrayal, revenge and romance. It had a few drawbacks: the crazy names like I said, the fact that it's a cliff hanger, and also it's a little dark. Sometimes I had to remind myself these people where supposed to be teenagers? But overall I was a fan. 

4/5 Stars.

Sidenote to my earlier sidenote: Yes, I lied, there is something better than reading an older book with an upcoming second book...ITS WHEN THE SECOND BOOK IS ALREADY OUT! Or like when I read Cinder and there were 4 more books available...that's really a wonderful thing.  The library has the second book on hold and I can't wait to read it.

Carve the Mark

By Veronica Roth

I was given Carve the Mark by my good pal Chloe, otherwise I wouldn't have ever picked this one up. I never read the Divergent series or saw the movies because it really didn't seem like my kind of thing. This type of YA sci-fi is confusing to me because it's old school classicism but in space? and I feel like by the time we get to space I hope we'd be past that? Also this was hard to get into because like Six of Crows the names in this book are ridiculous. I swear she was trying to be difficult. 

Anyways, the story takes place on a planet divided by two waring nations. Certain people in both nations are given fates that no matter what they will fulfill. While only some will have fates, everyone develops a currentgift, a unique power meant to shape their future. Most people have gifts that are helpful but our two main characters have gifts and fates that make life very difficult for them. 

First we have Cyra, who is I think technically the princess of the Shotet people. Her brother Ryzek  is the current ruler after the death of their parents. He's crazy for power and uses Cyra's gift for giving pain to torture his enemies. Cyra's gift not only causes her chronic pain but also emotional pain from being her brothers tool. 

Our second main character Akos and his brother are kidnapped by Ryzek from the more peaceful nation of Thuve and taken to Shotet. Ryzek hopes to use them to his advantage after learning of their currentgifts and fates. Akos' currentgift is the abilty to neuitalize others gifts, so Ryzek gifts him to Cyra so she won't be in constant pain but will still be useful to him. In a pretty predictable way Cyra and Akos have to learn to co-exist to overthrow Ryzek and save Akos brother. In the process they eventually start to fall for each other. Meh.

Overall I found the book a little confusing and slow. The parts you wanted to be longer were short, and the areas you didn't care for went on too long. I didn't know it wasn't going to be a stand-alone book (I should have known) so that was annoying to have a cliffhanger again, and then I went on Goodreads to rate it where I found a whole can of worms I didn't realize in the story regarding racism and disrespect towards individuals who suffer from chronic illnesses. 

I'm giving it a pretty generous 3/5 stars. 

If you liked Divergent you'll probably like it, but if that wasn't your thing I'd say skip it.

Last sidenote: I read that as part of their marketing plan Harper Collins paid people to read and review the book shortly before the release. I find that creepy and sad. I know galleys and arc are always a thing but to give people contracts and payments seems like they're trying to push this book way to hard to make up for it being less than stellar.

So now you tell me, what awesome books are you reading this month??
Did you read any of the above three? Agree or disagee?
Let me know in the comments!



till next time,
Maggie

Book Review: The Lunar Chronicles

Book lover problems: last month for book club we read "The Red Queen" which I devoured and then immediately downloaded the second book and read. Unfortunately for me, there is a third book that doesn't come out until who knows when. Starting an unfinished book series is one of the most frustrating things to me...I literally need to know what happened next or I won't stop thinking about it. I decided I needed a complete series to start ASAP. After a trip to the library I found they had whole Lunar Chronicles, which included four lengthy books I could read for a good minute. I was slightly hesitant because a.) they're teen bestsellers which can be good or bad b.) something about the covers was a turnoff and c.) how many Cinderella stories does a person need?

Apparently I needed one more. Or, as it were, four more books about one awesome cyborg Cinderella. Cinder, the first book in the Chronicles, follows Lihn Cinder. Cinder is a cyborg mechanic living in New Beijing, a commonwealth that like the rest of the world is plagued by the deadly Letumosis. 

That sentence normally would make me think the book was too"sci-fi" for me but Marissa Meyer works it all together brilliantly. Cinder lives with her wicked stepmother Adri and stepsisters Pearl and Peony. She has no memory of her past life prior to becoming a cyborg and spends her day working a stall fixing broken things, giving any money back to her stepmother, and only having the company of her funky and malfunctioning android Iko. One day the Price of New Beijing Kai stops by and asks her to fix his personal android, and that pretty much starts the crazy action in the book. Cinder's stepsister Peony catches letumosis and is whisked away, which Adri blames Cinder for and sends her to be palace where scientists are using cyborgs to test possible cures and research to the deadly plague. Cinder there meets Dr. Erland, who runs the research for plague cures. Cinder agrees to take part in the research, but only to find a cure for Peony. In the process she finds shes immune to the plague which sparks some questions, since no earthling could be immune. 

While reading you get to go back and forth with POVs, including Prince Kai. Kai's father the Emperor is dying from the plague and he has to deal with Queen Levana, the ruler of the Lunar colony at the moon who wants to form an alliance with him (aka to marry him) as soon as his Dad is dead. So, life's no party for him either. Queen Levana as a lunar has the ability to control your actions and glamour you. She's lived her life in a constant state of glamour as the most beautiful woman in the world, but Kai finds her repulsive. Levana bargains with a cure to the plague if they marry, and Kai feels he has no choice but to save his country. 

Before that can happen though Cinder gets Prince Kai’s android to work and finds out that Kai and the android had been searching for the dead/missing Princess Selene. Selene was Levana’s niece who many think is still alive and could take over the throne from Levana. Cinder tries to get that info to Kai, but Levana sees her and knows immediately she's actually a Lunar, and Lunars aren't supposed to be on earth. Levana tells Prince Kai he wants Cinder dead, but instead Kai asks her to the royal ball because, duh. Cinder says no because he's self-conscious of her cyborg bits, which Kai doesn't know about, and because she's a dummy. But then she finds out Levana is going to kill Kai, so she has to go to ball to warn him. Adri bans her from going, and it starts to take on that Cinderella/Ever After imma go to the ball no matter what kinda thing... and you can maybe guess what happens? But wait! then there is a twist! and you'll have to read book two to see what happens. 

The next book Scarlet is an awesome take on Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.  After that is Cress, a Rapunzel / Flynn Rider kinda thing, and lastly Winter a Sleeping Beauty/Snow White and the Huntsman retelling which brings all the characters together to bring down the evil Queen Levana. 

In case you're feeling some kinda way about the queen, Marissa has her backstory available in short story form!

It might be temping to say you'll skip these books for the same reasons I almost did but they are awesome and unique re-tellings that don't make you feel like you're just watching the Disney movies. The series was different and exciting, had strong female leads (with diversity), NO love triangles (thank you Jesus and Marissa Meyer), and was just fun to read. If you're a fan of the tv show Once Upon a Time  or if you love a bit of sci-fi mixed with your Disney, I'd say read them ASAP.

Shoutout in the comments what you've been reading, or if you loved the Chronicles too! If you suggest a non-complete series though I swear...lol

Till next time,

Maggie