(Belated) February Recap

I read a lot in February. Like a LOT.

Like 7 whole books, almost-4-times-as-much-as-last month a lot.

Onto the recaps!

In case you don't already know, Cress is the third book in The Lunar Chronicles series. This series will have four books, with one released every year in February. The series is a futuristic science-fiction retelling of fairy tales, with a new fairy tale character POV added with each book. Cinder, the first in the series, is a retelling of Cinderella, Scarlet, book 2, is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, Cress is a retelling of Rapunzel, and Winter, the final book in the series, will be a retelling of Snow White. Cress was just as addicting and fast paced as its predecessors. However, I'd say its my least favorite of the series so far, mostly because of a certain character in this book (spoilers after the cut).

After reading Scarlet (and then reading everyone's reception of Scarlet), I just realized that everyone loved Captain Thorne. Everyone except me, apparently. It's not that I hate him, I just didn't care about him one way or the other. But then finding out that he's the love interest for Cress in this book, well, that got to me a little. Because I don't care about him! Why does the majority of the book have to involve this dude whom I don't care about? Furthermore, thus book just gave me reasons to dislike him. Also, Cress was, in my opinion, less awesome than Scarlet and Cinder were. But those are all my personal complaints with no factual stuff to back them up, and I did really like Cress and Captain Thorne's character development throughout the book (probably the strongest/best character development out of the entire series so far).

That being said, I still loved it. I give it five stars! I can't wait for Winter (ugh why is it a whole year away?!?!?)

Before I had even finished reading Cress, I saw that the entire Vampire Academy series was on sale on Amazon for $2.99 each. So, book addict that I am, I bought them all. 

AND THEN I READ THEM ALL WITHIN 2 WEEKS.

Oh my goodness, this series is like crack. It is vampire-lovers crack, I tell you! I literally could not wait to finish the series. I am someone who hates getting spoiled on anything I read or watch, and I almost looked up the spoilers for this series to find out how the series ended because I could not read fast enough and I just needed to know SO BADLY. But I did not read spoilers, and I am so glad I didn't, based on what happened in the last book. I really wanted to make a video of my reaction to Last Sacrifice, but it would just be me quoting lines from the book with jump cuts of me sobbing, and probably no one is interested in that. But since I still want to talk about it, read on for my spoiler-filled discussion of the series! (spoilers in highlighted text) There are a lot of books which have broken my heart, but there are few authors who consistently break my heart. And the more I think back about these books and the authors who have continuously torn me to shreds, I've found they usually do it in the same manner. Jodi Picoult, J.K. Rowling, and Sarah Rees Brennan have all given me a case of the feels by killing or threatening to kill off my favorite characters. Jodi Picoult's tendency to kill off her main character has actually turned me off of her writing (the first time I was inconsolable, the second time I was a little sad, the third time I found it to be a cheap and unsuccessful attempt to make me sad). J.K. Rowling killed a lot of awesome secondary characters in the Harry Potter series, and even rereading them now would probably still make me cry. Sarah Rees Brennan tends to play with her readers hearts first, putting her characters through misunderstandings and miscommunications that cause emotional angst to them (and then me), before finally risking the life of a beloved character (but I haven't read all of her books yet, and so far no one I've absolutely loved has yet died). 

Richelle Mead has not only made it to this exclusive list of heartbreakers, but she's found a new way to break my heart without killing anyone (not that no one dies, it's a vampire series, tons of people die). No, Richelle Mead breaks my heart, not by killing my beloved secondary characters, but by making them evil. It happened in book 1, Vampire Academy. Based entirely on the movie trailer, I loved Natalie and the random nerd who was hanging out with the two main characters. I only had to meet Victor Dashkov to know he was evil, but it wasn't until halfway through the book, when someone wondered aloud how on earth someone kept sneaking the dying animals into Lissa's room, that I realized that as her roommate, Natalie was the only one with the opportunity. Flash forward to book 6, Last Sacrifice, and I am loving all the attention Tasha is getting. She's got a new love interest! Christian is annoyed at new love interest (lol annoying Christian is fun)! I'm not super enthralled with the mystery so far, I don't think Danielle makes the most sense for the murderer, but it's where the book is leading so I don't argue. Until the Alchemist says the murderer is easy to remember. And I don't even have to flip the page to read Rose say she is surprised at the revelation. Because I already know it's not Danielle. Because random pretty blondes are not easy to remember. You know who's easy to remember? People with scars covering half of their face! (insert ugly crying here). So yeah, Richelle Mead, heartbreaker. Which means she's now on my must-read list. I've shown herculean willpower by not buying the Bloodlines series by her yet, as there are still two more books yet to be released in that series, and I already know I am incapable of waiting when it comes to these characters and this world.

And so that wraps up my awesome reading month! Unfortunately, I think the only way I'm going to have another month like that is if I have more addicting series to binge, but we'll see. I'm halfway through MArch, and I'm already back to my old habit of starting new books instead of finishing old ones so I'm 30-50% done with several books. 

Right now I'm going back and forth between:

-Insurgent by Veronica Roth (I know, I'm super behind. I was waiting for the paperback to come out before buying it, which meant waiting for Allegiant to come out, and then the paperback did NOT come out, and then SOMEONE SPOILED ME ON THE ALLEGIANT ENDING so I just bought the two of them in hardcover to be done with it. Then I lent them to my friend cause I was in the middle of reading something else when she asked for them and I couldn't read them before lending them to her, and I only just got them back last weekend.)

-The Madman's Daughter by Margaret Shepherd (In case you haven't heard of this, it's a retelling of The Island of Dr. Moreau. It is dark and gritty and creepy and IT NEEDS TO BE A GRAPHIC NOVEL, I'VE DECIDED)

-Legend by Marie Lu (another dystopian trilogy. I managed to find out absolutely nothing else about it before reading it, and I must say I'm loving it so far)

That's all from me for now. I'll try to post again soon!

Happy reading,

Katie