Delirium by Lauren Oliver

“I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.”

Okay, so this book has pretty much left me speechless. I literally finished like, a few minutes ago and my mind is still seriously blown.

Lena lives in a world where love is the enemy, where passion is anathema, where poetry and art have fallen by the wayside, and romantic tendencies must be put down at all costs. some seriously hardcore brainwashing helps guide young citizens through the complexities of these norms, while upon reaching their majority a more comprehensive (invasive, horrifying) solution is offered: a procedure, not so far removed from a lobotomy, that results in a total dulling of the emotions. Recipients of this procedure feel nothing. Love, happiness, anger are null.

Lena does the unthinkable – she falls in love.

Okay, so this book has pretty much left me speechless. I literally finished like, a few minutes ago and my mind is still seriously blown. And the cliffhanger? GOD, WHY?! I need to know what happens! I also absolutely loved the way that bible stories, Shakespeare and other literature were intertwined into the narrative – either left unaltered and banned by the government for its subversiveness or altered in order to conform to the dystopian ideologies. Final verdict? 5/5. This book was utterly perfect.

“Love, the deadliest of all deadly things:
It kills you both when you have it, and when you don’t.
But that isn’t it, exactly.
The condemner and the condemned;
The executioner the blade; the last-minute reprieve;
the gasping breath and the rolling sky and the thank you, thank you, God.
Love. It will kill you and save you, both.”

Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

Before Ellie turned seventeen, she was a regular teenager with regular problems. She loved parties, Valentino, ice cream, and Friday Movie Night. Except for one thing. Ellie is a Preliator, an ancient warrior, and has been reincarnated into a seemingly average teenage girl roughly every decade for thousands of years to fight the battle the agents of the fallen angel Lucifer in the Grim under the instruction of Will, her Guardian. I really enjoyed this concept and found the new viewpoint on the “old topic” of good vs. evil a breath of fresh air. 

Will and Ellie’s relationship developed at a reasonable, steady pace and didn’t feel rushed at all. I really loved his character, and the scenes between he and Ellie gave me the warm fuzzies. OOHHH Lordy, the chemistry! Freaking awesome. 

It wasn’t just the two main characters. All of the secondary characters were fully developed and each had their own unique personalities. Even the reapers had their own fully developed personalities! 

This book was pretty similar to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series in a lot of ways. Being a huge Buffy fan, of course I loved it. I adored it. A lot of books in this genre out there lately are severely lacking in a strong, female protagonist, and Angelfire certainly fits the bill. The fight scenes are beautifully choreographed, no other angel book out there right now could even hope to touch the intricacy of the mythology described in this book. 

Final Verdict? FREAKING EPIC. 5/5 stars. I can’t wait for the second installment in the trilogy!

This book is scheduled for release on February, 15, 2011.

Once in a Full Moon by Ellen Schreiber

“I was a love struck girl and yet I couldn’t control my ridiculous feelings.”  -Celeste

I really had high hopes and expectations for this book. First of all, the cover is absolutely stunning. AND, it’s by Ellen Schreiber. What could go wrong?? Unfortunately, it was a pretty huge let-down.

There have been whisperings around Celeste Parker’s small town about werewolves for years, and like everyone else, she dismissed them as urban legend.. until a mysterious outsider comes to town and totally turns Celeste’s life inside out. 

I didn’t really bond with the characters in this book. Nash was a typical teenage jock, poking fun at the westsiders for being poor, and there wasn’t too much character development in Celeste’s friendship circle or family to really get to know them either. It seemed like they were just props for our leading girl. But then we’re introduced to Brandon Maddox, new kid on the Westside and often the brunt of Nash’s jokes. Of course Celeste falls in love with him — Like a WEEK later. The romance was so rushed! Shortly after Brandon is bitten by a wolf, he phases in Celeste’s presence. Only not. He kind of just grows lots of hair, a goatee, his eyes turn gray and he grows taller. Yea. pretty lame. 

Final verdict? 2/5. It was pretty hokey, and not at all what I was expecting. I wanted to love this SO MUCH!! This had similes that made me choke on me coffee, and makes Stephenie Meyer look like a master of nuanced relationships and literary prose.

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

 “So often we only do what we think is expected of us, when we are capable of so much more.”

Clara’s mother is half angel. Dimidius, to be exact. Which would make Clara a Quartarius. She’s known since she was fourteen years old what she was, and that someday she would have to fulfill her purpose. So, when Clara has a vision of a truck’s license place, and a boy in a forest fire, she finds herself transplanted from sunny California to podunk Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Her life has been a whirlwind of trying to make sense of the vision, making new friends, finding where she fits in, and trying to capture the interest of the cute boy starring in her visions. Oh, and not to mention being called Carrots every other day by the hella obnoxious brother of her new friend, Wendy.

So, here’s where it gets super spoiler-y. I seriously expected Clara to end up with Christian. I mean, it totally makes sense. She has the vision about him, he dumps his crazy hag beast of a girlfriend, and they end up going to prom. But, it doesn’t happen that way, which I found refreshing. So often, you see the lead female protagonist falling for the first guy introduced in the book, but it doesn’t happen that way. She and Tucker start to spend more time together and fall in love. I freaking know, right?! I never saw it coming. I actually kind of thought that she would end up ‘falling from grace’ or whatever, but it turned out that Christian was completely irrelevant to the entire thing. I’m totally not going to ruin the book for everyone else, so I’ll shut up now. /end spoilers

Clara was a pretty likeable character. She struggles just like everyone else, even though she’s part angel. She isn’t genetically superior in every way, and in a lot of ways, she seemed just like an average teenager trying to get through day to day life and get out of high school. I also really liked that her friends were legit characters in the book, and weren’t just props for our star. They were real people with real depth, and had total likeability. Even though Angela was super weird, but that’s just her character, I think.

Oh man, this book went above and beyond my expectations. I adored it from beginning to end (even though the ending was a teensy bit rushed, I thought), and I seriously can’t wait for the second installment! Team Tucker all the way!!

Final Verdict? Near perfect. 5 stars!!