Abithica by Susan Goldsmith- Advanced Copy

The Gist

Abithica
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Abithica doesn't know what she is. She only knows that she gets thrown into other peoples bodies and takes control of them for a while. Their life is in her control. Then she is suddenly gone from their life and has taken over another person. The only word she can use to describe herself is parasite. When she is thrown into the life of Sydney Turner she bites off more than she can chew. She is now suddenly involved with an evil cult that she has not even heard about before. Then to top of all of her new problems there is Lane and his love for her and being a parasite to Abithica has one rule and one rule only DON'T fall in love.

What We Think
Reviewed by ShoreWhisperer
Number of Pages: 288
This book was intense from the beginning. There was alot of confusion, mostly because Abithica didn't know where she was or who she was. Everything was hazy until the third or fourth chapter when answers started coming. That was one of my complaints. I can understand the importance of not knowing what or who Abithica is really but sometimes that became a real hassle and it even took away from being able to comprehend the book. Also, there are alternate chapters that really aren't in the view of Abithica and even though they are labled it still added to the confusion of the book.
There were characters that were introduced half way through the book and that added to the confusion too. Alot of the characters didn't have alot of character development. Only the immediate characters were really developed well and when they were it was nice they were so complex and real. I feel like if the characters were developed a little better overall and made the book a little longer then it wold be more satisfying. I know that there are upcoming books in this series hopefully there will be more characterization.
Finally the topics dealt with were old but still nice. Abithica has the ulitimate choice. Should she let herself love or should she live her life the way she always has. It could ultimatly help her find herself or it could destroy her. Then the light touches of the good verses bad helped shadow this book with little bursts of wisdom. I thoroughly enjoyed this book after a while and I couldn't put it down. This is an ultimate goal of a good book but it also showed some good insight into how humans live. It was entertaining on many levels.
Real Teen Rating~ B: Read it but there is no rush

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Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade - Advanced Copy

If you have not read The Ghost and The Goth, then read at your own risk, this contains spoilers!


The Gist

Queen of the Dead
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Alona Dare, miss popular of the school, and Will Killian, resident goth-boy, have been spending a lot of time together.  That may have something to do with the fact that she's newly dead and he can see the dead. Since being run over by a bus, Alona has been helping Will aid the dead in moving to the other side, by fulfilling their strange last requests.  They have a good system going, until one night while helping a particularly irritated old ghost, their well-worn routine is interrupted by mysterious ghost seer Mina.  She's the first seer he's ever met, and Will is instantly curious to know her, but Alona isn't so quick to trust this cranky, exotic stranger.  Probably because she's a ghost, and Mina really hates ghosts.  Add this to the fact that Alona's parents are moving on with their lives and leaving her behind, and the looming 'friends or more than that' question between her and Will., and what's left is one cranky and hurt Alona who's willing to do anything to get what she wants/  And that can only lead to trouble.  


What We Think
Reviewed by Living Destiny
Number of Pages: 266
This book is the sequel to The Ghost and The Goth, also by Stacey Kade (duh), which came out last summer.  As dorky as it is, I've been eagerly awaiting this book since I finished the first one.  In fact, when the author agreed to send us an advanced copy, I'm pretty sure Dream and I jumped up and down shouting 'yes!' (which garnered us some very interesting looks).  So yes, as silly as this book sounds, I was looking forward to reading it.  Quite a bit.
Before I say anything about the actual content, I have to say: the cover art is awful.  Really, truly bad.  The background is bland, the people look too forced in their poses, and the boy looks kind of ugly.  The whole thing is just totally unappealing.  It's not the sort of art that makes me want to read a book, or even pick it up off a book display in stores.  Ok, now that that's over, I can focus on the story itself.  Since it's the second in a series, the plot does spill over from the last book.  Will and Alona are the same people although I liked them a little less in this book than the first.  Well, that actually isn't true.  It just bothered me that Alona was so selfish, bratty and impulsive.  More so than usual, anyway.  But then she redeemed herself by being very selfless, even if she was still slightly annoying.  And Will was irritating at points because he was too trusting of some things.  But in the end he was his capable, intelligent self, and I appreciated him for it.  Mina, the biggest new character, I didn't like much at all.   She, like Alona, was selfish and bossy, but while with Alona it's somehow ok; on Mina it's just obnoxious, and I really wanted to punch her in the face most times.  She wasn't likable at all, which is ok because she wasn't meant to be.  The actual storyline of this book was super interesting.  I know, with a name like Queen of the Dead it sounds like a super-cheesy, overdone young adult book that's trying too hard.  But it isn't!  It introduced some new philosophies on ghosts - what they are, how they work, what should be done with them - that strongly differed from Will's which made for an exciting clash.  There was this crazy twist about halfway through that's multiplied by at least five near the end.  I'm pretty sure my jaw actually hit the floor.  I'm still not sure how I feel about it, whether I like it or not.  It's just so...gah!  GAAAAH!!!  Yea, it's sort of shocking, if you couldn't tell.  But even besides the major twists, the book never got dull.  It held my attention for the whole story.  The fact that it's told from both Will and Alona's points of view helps it stay interesting, because it can easily tell two different aspects of the story in first person.  I liked the whole mystery about WIll's dad and his littler adventures (for lack of a better word), and the continuation of Lily's story with Will and Alona's.  In fact, I liked this more than I liked the first book, maybe because it seemed like it had more substance.  For whatever reason, it was better than The Ghost and The Goth, and was an excellent second-in-a-series book.  It may sound goofy, it may look goofy, and sure, it IS a little goofy, but it's surprisingly entertaining, and I'm already longing for book three.  
Real Teen Rating~ B+: Wait for vacation.

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Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton- Advanced Copy

The Gist

Blood Magic
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Silla has had one of the most traumatic years of her life.  After being the one to find both of her parents dead in the living room, being broken up with by her boyfriend and not being able to focus on the most important thing in her life, the school play.  To top it all off the police have come to the conclusion that her father murdered her mother and then took his own life shortly after, but Silla knows deep down in her heart this is not true and her father was a sweet, innocent man who could hurt no one especially his own wife.
Nick absolutely hates everything about his life and wishes that it would just go away for a while.  His mother is out of the picture and his father has found a new wife and not one that Nick is fond of.  His father and new stepmother also decide that it is time to move and so Nick packs up, leaves every single one of his friends that it took him so long to make and leaves.
Nick is positive that this is going to be the worst year of his entire life...that is until a trip to the local cemetery finds him talking to Silla and falling in love from the minute he sees her.  Not to mention the fact that right before he walked over she had been slitting her wrists over a dead leaf.  The minute Silla leaves Nick tries to find out everything about her from his only friend in the school and goes on a quest.
That night in the cemetery Silla wasn't slitting her wrists because she was depressed and done with life it is because she was performing magic, and the main ingredient in a spell is blood so, the most logical place in her head is to take it from her wrists, and she wasn't exactly planning on having company in the first place.
As Nick and Silla grow closer to one another they find out that they have more in common than they thought and someone is trying to steal the spell book that they hold so close to them and will literally kill anyone who gets in their way of obtaining the book.

What We Think
Reviewed by The North Star
Number of Pages: 405
We first got this book as an ARC and it was my turn to get the next ARC and I couldn't have been more excited.  I had seen the book cover and short synopsis on Goodreads previously and loved everything about it.  From page one I knew that I was going to really like this book.  I really enjoyed the plot line of the book because it was something different.  Nowadays, the common thing to write about is vampires, werewolves and fallen angels and pure magic has been kind of pushed to the side.  This was also a different type of magic because to perform any spell you had to sacrifice some of your own blood.  I had never heard of this concept and found it really intriguing and it made me want to turn the page at the end of every sentence.  This concept also kept me up in the middle of the night trying to finish one more chapter because I was so desperate to know what was going to happen to the characters.
That brings me to the next topic of characters.  The interesting thing about this book was the fact that it would switch off between three speakers, Silla, Nick and mysterious letters.  Silla was a strong main girl character who I could relate to.  The things that she had to go through in the book I couldn't even imagine holding up as well as she did and I can only imagine crawling up into a little ball and never coming out of my room if I lost my boyfriend and my parents all within the same week.  In that way she was a strong character and clearly new her limits and when enough was enough.  The one thing that did bother me about Silla was that at points she got annoying.  She would complain a little too much about not being able to see Nick because he would turn away to walk home and she would instantly miss him and want him to come back when she was going to see him in a hour or two.  This seemed a little needy but other than that she was a strong character.  Now onto Nick who I liked better than Silla.  Nick was sarcastic  funny and all around a great character.  I couldn't find one thing that I didn't like about him and I was always excited when I saw that a passage of his was coming up.  It seemed like it truly loved Silla and at points she seemed to not trust that they were actually in love but he never doubted his feelings for her and was always there for her if she needed him to be.  Now as a couple the two of them got on my nerves.  They had their moments of "aw" that I thought were cute but most of the time they were just making-out.  I get it if you want to kiss the person, but why does it have to be ALL the time.  When they weren't together they would think about kissing and Silla would only dream of kissing him.  She didn't dream of him as a person all she dreamed of was kissing his soft lips and the second he would leave she would wish they could have kissed once more.  This was also a problem that Nick faced.  When he was alone in his house he would wish Silla was there so he could kiss her and he couldn't wait until he saw her again so that he could kiss her.  Maybe, some people like all the kissing and excessive talk of kissing but I thought it was awkward and only made them weaker characters.   
The last thing I am going to talk about is the cover of the book.  The cover of this book is brillant and whoever designed it I applaud you! It is eye-catching and if I saw it on the shelves in stores I would buy it in an instant and I never get tired of it.  After, reading the book I really appreciated the cover and all of the hidden things that it holds that you don't realize until you read the book.
In the end this was a great read and had fun twists that you don't think will happen and when they do you are completely shock.  This is something I now appreciate about Tessa Gratton as an author and after reading this book I am super excited to read the sequel The Blood Keeper when it comes out! Recommend this book to any YA lover.

Real Teen Rating~ B+ : Wait for Vacation.

Reviewed by ShoreWhisperer
This book was interesting. It was a little slow and confusing in the beginning but altogether a very well put together book.  It was very prominently and Young Adult novel. It has all the elements of it, the dark gothic feel, the attractive guy, the troubled girl. What else could you ask for?  There was a couple of things that bothered me though.
One: as North said they talked WAY to much about kissing... yes Nick is cute and all but please spare me the  gory details of a teenage girls fantasies. It was seriously all they thought about after that first kiss and then its all they did afterwards. I don't think that there was one scene where they didn't end up kissing. Now for a Young Adult novel you can usually get away with that but for some reason it just stuck out like a sore thumb in this book. Nick and Silla just didn't seem the type to makeout all the time.
Two: Nick was way to brooding for my liking. Yes, Edward Cullen is the biggest brooder of all time but when you are somewhat in between not brooding and brooding it just doesn't work. Sometimes I felt like his brooding didn't fit and that he was not realistic at all. He was way to oblivious to his new stepmother and lashed out at her at points that didn't make sense at all and that confused me.
That was what I disliked most about the book. Something that really caught me in this book was the use of symbols. Especially ones that were common in gothic literature in the 1800's. I thought it made the book unique. The crows were very powerful, the cemetery, the old victorian house, the blood and gore. All of it made it seem dark and gothic which is more than some of the "gothic" books you read today give you.
Finally, the old story in the book was fascinating. Most times I don't look forward to reading the older sections of books when they have them, the flashbacks can be tedious to read but the narrator was just so wonderfully evil that it made it fun to read. All the wrongdoings and imperfections in the story was captivating to me and I enjoyed it thoroughly. All the characters were developed wonderfully and everything seemed well done in this book. It was a good read.
Real Teen Rating~B+ : Wait for Vacation.

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Exclusive Interview with Tessa Gratton (Author of Blood Magic)

After finishing Blood Magic in a matter of days we HAD to talk to Tessa Gratton and find out where the genius came from.

RTR: If you could have lunch with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

Tessa: I’d like to have a rhyming contest with Will Shakespeare – though I know I’d lose, it would make for great stories.

 

RTR: What is your guilty pleasure?

Tessa: The Vampire Diaries.

RTR: What is your favorite book/movie/TV show/song/artist/album at this very second?

Tessa: Criminal Minds. THE PIPER’S SON by Melina Marchetta. The album “Body Talk” by Robyn. Anything by The Sounds.

RTR: What is your favorite prehistoric mammal?

Tessa: The giant sloth, obviously.

RTR: How did you come up with the idea of using blood to preform magic?

Tessa: Blood is so important in so many mythologies, it seemed like the perfect catalyst for a very realistic kind of magic.

RTR: Who is your favorite character from Blood Magic?

Tessa: Josephine Darly

RTR: If you could be a superhero, what would your name be and what power would you have?

Tessa: I’m not sure I’d want a secret identity – but I’d definitely want to be able to fly.

RTR: How long did it take to right Blood Magic and how long did it take for it to get published?

Tessa: I wrote the first draft in 6 weeks, then revised for about 6 months. The book sold 4 months later, and that was August of 2009. So quite a while all told!

RTR: We are dying to know....What will happen to Nick and Silla's relationship in the next book?!?!

Tessa: Ha! You know I can’t tell you that. But what I will say is: The Blood Keeper is a companion novel that takes place 5 years after the end of Blood Magic, but you will find out about what happens with Nick and Silla. Promise.

RTR: What advice would you like to give to aspiring authors?

Tessa: Have as many adventures as possible!

RTR: What is your favorite cliche?

Tessa: Love is like a red, red rose.

Thanks Tessa! Can't wait until the sequel The Blood Keeper!

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Griffin Rising by Darby Karchut - Advanced Copy

The Gist

Griffin Rising
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Guardian angels do exist.  Also known as Terrae Angelus, they live on Earth, can control the elements, and have free will to choose between good and evil.  And they save humans in danger.  Tiro Griffin is one of those angels.  After spending three horrible years being abused by Mentor angel Nicopolis, Griffin is reassigned to Mentor Basil, to be taught the ways of the Terrae Angelus.  He has three years of knowledge, training, mission, and affection to make up for before his Proelium at age sixteen, where he will fight to become a full guardian angel.  Three years isn’t a very long time. 

What We Think

Reviewed by Living Destiny

Number of Pages: 169

Oh, where to begin.  Wheeeeere to begin.  Angels.  Guardian angels.  Not the most original concept, but at the same time, not the most overused.  How bad can it be, right?  Bad.  Very bad.  The plot had potential, for sure.  It just wasn’t carried out well enough.  The book was SO SHORT.  Sorry.  But seriously, 169 pages?  I’ve had homework longer than that.  And the funny part?  It took me a month to finish it.  I sincerely did not want to read it.  And here I am trying to review it, and honestly I don’t want to do that either.  BUT.  I must.  So.  Characters!  The dynamic between Basil and Griffin was enjoyable to read.  They had a little witty banter going on, which was honestly one of the few redeemable qualities of the book.  Katie was also a good character, but some of her decisions were stupid or exaggerated.  She didn’t come off as very intelligent at times, and Griffin came off as trying too hard, which made for an odd relationship.  The other characters weren’t developed at all.  The bad guy, Nicopolis, is very bad.   He’s super bad (no relation to the movie).  But it never explains why he’s so bad.  It’s just like, RAR I’M DEVIOUS AND EVIL MWAHAHAHA!!! Why is he devious and evil?  Um...well it’s totally unclear.  He just is.  And that’s annoying!  You can’t just have a bad guy without an explanation as to why he’s so vindictive.  And speaking of things that have no explanation, there’s clearly some sort of history between Basil, Nicopolis, and Guardian Mayla, probably sprung from when they were young Tiros, but that isn’t explained either.  Half of this book needs to be inferred, and if I’m reading a book I expect it to tell me a story, not make me tell the story myself.  Oh, and Guardian Mayla was way too trusting.  She comes in twice, and both times she doesn’t question Nicopolis at all.  If the three of them do have history, which I can only assume as it doesn’t say, she would know what a sneaky, conniving person he is.  Unless, of course, his general evil-ness is a recent occurrence, which is doubtful, although it DOESN’T SPECIFY (can you tell that bothers me?).  Guardian Mayla is simply too naïve.  And since I’m talking about Mayla, I have to ask: what’s with the names?  I understand the concept of creating names for characters; names you like, names that fit the character, names that speak to you.  But some of these names I find hard to believe are actually names at all.  Nicopolis?  Mayla?  There’s a bit character, who literally appears only in two pages, whose name is Sukalli.  Basil and Griffin are bizarre names too, but at least they’re actual names.  Those other three are just absurd.  Oh but they’re angels!  They’re magical!  Guess what.  You can be a magically magical angel without having a name spelt Joakkaenn.  It drove me crazy. 

The plot itself was dull.  One would think, if the book is about guardian angels who live solely to save people, it would be more exciting.  No.  Most of the book revolves around the relationship between Griffin and Katie, which I honestly didn’t care about.  There wasn’t anything interesting in it.  They meet.  They like each other.  There are problems.  They are solved.  That’s the whole relationship right there, but it’s stretched out over 100 pages.  There was almost no action.  The only time I was interested was when Basil and Griffin were out on missions, saving people.  Those moments, however, were few and far between.  And most of them were just descriptions from the ‘journal entries’ that the author was so fond of using.  I was so bored reading this book.  The only other conflict in the book was between Griffin and this other guy named Nash.  That was where Griffin really got to showcase his stupidity.  It was a beautiful moment, really.  Nash goes to attack him, and there’s Griffin, all guardian angel like and ready to defend himself.  He has super strength; he could just fight him off.  But does he?  No, he breaks the ground and shoots fire.  Yea, that’s totally discreet.  No one suspects anything abnormal about you now Griffin, don’t worry about it.  What a moron.  There was just nothing particularly captivating in the story.  And since I mentioned it before, I feel like I need to talk about it: the way the story is told.  Quite possibly one of the weirdest narration techniques I’ve ever run into.  This story is told in third person omniscient (which, in case you don’t know, is using ‘he’ not ‘I’ and giving thoughts from multiple characters).  I’m ok with third person omniscient.  When it’s used right it’s actually very fun to read.  But just that one writing style wasn’t enough for this book.  No, Griffin Rising had to be told from third person omniscient, plus journal entries from the three main characters, Griffin, Basil and Katie.  That was just awesome to read!  Oh…wait…NO IT WASN’T!  It was confusing and annoying, and I always had to check to make sure I knew who was doing the talking, or who was having the thoughts I was reading.  This book invented a brand new, totally obnoxious way of story telling, that had some potential but was carried out poorly.  The ending was totally awful.  It was just too…fake!  Overly hopeful and cheesy.  Plain bad.  The last line too.  It was so gross I wanted to puke when I read it.  Are there any merits of this book?  I remembered one!  I enjoyed the whole ‘manuscript’ thing in the beginning.  Pity she didn’t expand on that one more.  Or put more focus on the saving people as opposed to the Pinocchio-esque, I’m-a-real-boy theme.  Blech.  I didn’t like any of the characters (unless the dog counts), I didn’t like the storyline, and I truly hated the ending.  This teensy-tiny, poor excuse for young adult fiction should be avoided.  Period.  

Real Teen Rating~ D: It passes time.  I guess.

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Christina Perri- Lovestrong.

Reviewed by The North Star

Song Time: 1 Hour and 36 Seconds (with bonus material) 

Lovestrong
Buy it here and support our blog

Christina Perri recently became a sensation in the music industry.  When her main song "Jar of Hearts" was featured on So You Think You Can Dance everyone flocked to their iTunes accounts and bought the song and everyone was begging for more!  Months later she slowly gave out some of her music with the songs "The Lonely", "Penguin", "Arms", and "Tragedy".  The other day she came out with her first CD, Lovestrong.  and I was so excited to review it because she is brilliant.  

Bluebird- 12/10- I LOVE this song so much.  It is about a girl who is in love with a boy and then he breaks up with the girl and the girl is still in love with the boy and she is trying to repair her broken heart.  This is the first song on her CD that I heard first once I bought the whole CD.  I had heard songs like "Arms" and "The Lonely" before because they were singles but Bluebird wasn't so it was technically the first song I heard off the CD.  I instantly fell in love with the Lovestrong and couldn't wait to her the rest of the CD.  Christina's vocals are beautiful and are somewhat angelic.  The way she sings is very soothing and really shows all the talent that she has.  The lyrics to this song are also very meaningful but complicated because they could be interpreted in a lot of different ways, which is always interesting to see how your friends or other people will take it.  In the end this is a great song and worth $0.99 and should be on everyone's music player.    

Arms- 9.5/10- This was one of the first songs listed as a single when she was releasing songs for hype  for the CD.  According to iTunes it is the biggest song off her album currently and I can see why that is.  This is a song about a girl who loves her boyfriend and she doesn't feel completely whole unless she is near him and he has his arms around her (hence the name of the song).  The song isn't really as cheesy as I am making it sound but the lyrics are very meaningful.  The beat of the song is really nice and it is one of those songs that you sing when no one is in the house and you are all by yourself.  This is a song I can imagine being played on the radio and finding its way onto millions of iPods around the world.  I prefer it when Christina sings the slower songs because I think it sounds better with her voice but this is still a great song and one to buy!   

Bang Bang Bang- 9.5/10- There is something about this song that I really love and I have no idea what that thing is.  The chorus is really well executed and I can't help but tap my foot whenever I hear it.  Most times I really want to get up and dance (as cliche as it sounds) like nobody is watching.  The great thing about this song is that when you listen to the song from the beginning you don't expect to get this huge powerful chorus, which is a pleasant surprise.  This one is about a girl and her boyfriend treated her not very nicely so they break up but she hears that his next boyfriend did the same thing he did to her to him and so she is singing about he got what he deserved in the end.  This is all around a great song and anyone who has ever gone out with a jerk can relate to this song and will hopefully love this song as much as I love it.  

Distance- 8.5/10- This is a song that I know a lot of people will be able to relate to this song.  It is about a girl trying to get over the last break-up that she had and she now has a new boyfriend and doesn't want to rush things because her heart is still healing.  This is a really pretty song but not one of my favorites.  This song is a duet and I am not sure who is singing the boy part but it is really nice and their voices blend quite nice together.  As usual her voice sounds perfect but the thing that I'm not crazy about in this song is the way the versus' sound.  The lyrics are fine but just something about them I just don't like; it might just be the way she sings the lines or the music in the background but other than that I'm not sure what it is.  The thing that I do love about this song the bridge is the bridge towards the end and the chorus when the guy and the girl do some major harmonies.  Sounds heavenly. 

Jar of Hearts- 11.99/10-   Will always be one of my favorite songs ever!  See this link: http://realteenreview.blogspot.com/2010/09/christina-perri-jar-of-hearts.html    

Mine- 7/10- I don't really like this song because personally I think that Christina isn't very good at singing fast songs and her voice is designed to sing the slower heart wrenching ballads.  I'm not sure if the girl in the song is the guy's wife or his mistress but I guess that is all about how you interpret the song.  The only parts of the song that I like are when it slows down and gets more intense and has a nice piano part to go along with it.  When they have this silly synthesized part of the song added in that doesn't sound like real instruments and kind of ruins the whole song.  This is one that I don't listen to very often and have only listened to it 5 times in a row to review the song and it is getting worse every time.  Not one to buy.  

Interlude- 8.5/10- I would just like to point out that this is the most RANDOM song that I have ever heard on a CD before, which doesn't necessarily mean that it is bad.  The song is 51 seconds of oh's and ah's with a beautiful piano part in the background.  I'm not sure why they recorded this song or why they put it on the track but it is really pretty and if you are looking for beautiful voices singing some oh's and ah's this is the song you should buy.   

Penguin- 9.5/10- This is a very cute song and reminds me a lot of the summer.  Now if you haven't listened to this song you might be looking at the song title wondering what a song called penguin must be about.  I thought that too but I didn't question it because it was a Christina Perri song and I love almost all her songs.  I didn't quite get why it was called Penguin until Dream listened to it and enlightened me as to why it might be called Penguin. The theory of this song is that it is about a couple who are deeply in love and have a great relationship making them best friends and he is her penguin because penguins mate once in a lifetime and then that is it.  I really enjoy listening to this song and after listening to it I also have the line "Baby it's fate, not luck" stuck in my head and it won't come out for a good 2 days.  In short, this song is adorable and one I think a lot of people will love and I can see it on the radio in the future.   

Miles- 6.8/10- This song is just OK.  I don't really love it but I don't hate it either and it is in that awkward space where I don't really know where to place it.  It is a beautiful song, no doubt about it but the lyrics aren't as strong as her other songs and seem kind of cheesy.  She is singing about how she is in love with her boyfriend but he wants to break-up with her and she will do anything to keep him. The fact that this girl can't survive without a guy in her life is a little silly.  If it was her husband that would be a different story but the mood and other lyrics in the song sounds really young and as if they had only been dating a short time. The lyric that really gives that away is "Don't count the miles, count the I love you's". The song is the weakest one on her CD but I guess not every artist can have every song be a hit.    

The Lonely- 11.99/10- This song is sheer brillance!!! It was one of the first songs released as a promo for the CD and I'm so glad that they did that because it just made me that much more excited for the CD to come out.  This little ditty is about a girl who has just broken up with her significant other and how she can't live a day without him and every day spent apart the loneliness slowly consumes her.  It is kind of a depressing song but it is beautiful and is one of those songs you get super addicted to and can't stop listening to for days on end.  When you listen to it the mood of the song is set so strongly that you can almost see the entire music video unravelling in your head...or maybe that is just me. Anyways, this is a great song and will be one of my favorites until the end of time and should be on everyone's iPod no matter what!  

Sad Song- 9.5/10- The interesting thing about this song is that Christina wrote this song back in 2008, sang it on her YouTube channel and posted it only to be able to record it on her first CD.  This shows that she has always had talent and was just waiting to be discovered for quite a while.  Back to the song, it is passionate and lovely. It is a little more uptempo than some of her other songs (meaning the beat) but the lyrics are a little on the down side as usual. This song is about a girl that lives far away from her boyfriend or feels distant from him, I'm not quite sure which one and she is writing a song for him to tell him how she feels.  The chorus of the song is one that makes you want to sing along but my favorite part of the song is the bridge because it is something different.  This song is on a little bit of the longer side which is fine but you can only listen to the same verse over and over only so many times so the bridge is a nice little break.  Any Christina Perri lover would love this song and other people but especially people who really like her style of music. 

Tragedy- 10/10- This song really represents what Christina Perri is all about and what new things she brings to the table.  She rights lyrics that the common person can relate to because it doesn't sugarcoat anything.  That might kind of sound a little down but it is true and that is what I love about her and her music.  This song is about a girl who was humiliated by her boyfriend and is now breaking up with him, simply because he was a jerk.  Her vocals are spot on and from listening to the recording you can really hear her getting into the song and expressing her feelings even if it had never happened to her before.  There is really nothing bad to say about this song and everyone should buy it because it is worth the money.  

Backwards (Bonus Track)- 8.5/10- This song is quite mellow and relaxing.  You don't even have to listen to the lyrics to enjoy the song.  The first time I listened to this song I didn't listen to the words I just laid back and enjoyed the arrangement and how nice everything blended together.  This song is about how a girl's town doesn't take any risks (I imagine it to be a town where everyone knows everyone's business) and she is finally taking risks and crossing lines that haven't been crossed before.  The great thing about this song is that it doesn't sound like a song with this take over feel in just the lyrics alone so when I actually read the lyrics I realized how much deeper the song is after examining it a little farther.  A great song for the summer and relaxing around the house or at the beach.     

Black + Blue (Bonus Track)- 9/10- Quirky, fun and interesting are just some of the adjectives that you could use to describe this song.  This is one of those songs that you feel yourself listening to over and over again but you have no idea why you are doing it in the first place.  I am currently trying to learn all of the lyrics so it can be one of the songs to sing in the car but I really don't have an explanation as to why I like this song, you just have to listen to it and see how you react.  

My Eyes (Bonus Track)- 8.4/10- This is probably the most depressing of all Christina's songs.  It is about someone who is trying to close their eyes to sleep, shut out the world and simply stop seeing but they won't shut.  This song is pretty good but the one problem that I have with it is the arrangement that plays while she is not singing.  It sounds like the music that plays in the background of a low-budget horror film (which is never good).  Other than that I really enjoy this song and as always the vocals are spot on.  Even though this song deals with a depressing topic it is addictive and I can't help but keep listening to it.  This isn't one that you need to go buy right away but is a nice addition if you decide to buy the whole deluxe addition of the CD.  

Real Teen Rating~A: Worth Buying!

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Catfish- Yaniv Schulman and Henry Joost

The Gist

Catfish
Buy it here and support our blog

Yaniv Schulman(Nev) is your typical photographer living in New York City, this is until he gets one of his photos published in a common New York magazine.  Once published a young girl (8 years old) named Abby sends Nev an exact replica of his photo but in the form of a painting.  Flattered that someone painted a picture of his photo he e-mails Abby some thanks.  The next e-mail he gets back from her asks if he could send her more photos to paint.  Jumping at the opportunity Nev attaches some photos to the e-mail and patiently waits for the paintings to arrive in the mail.  As Nev grows closer and begins to learn more about her life, his friends decide that this is the perfect opportunity to make a documentary on his relationship with Abby.  Nev reluctantly agrees and just continues going about his daily business until he starts to add Abby's family as friends on the social networking site Facebook.  One family member in particular catches Nev eye, and that is her half-sister Megan.  Nev begins talking to Megan over Facebook chat, phone, e-mail and texting.  Their relationship quickly progresses and when Nev has a job close to where Megan lives he decides to pop-in to visit her.  When he gets there everything is not as he suspected....


What We Think
Reviewed by The North Star 
Run Time: 87 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
The first time that I saw this movie was on Ellen when she brought on Nev to do an interview with and from the second she talked about the story I knew that I was interested.  Ever since that episode had aired I wondered what the big secret was and resisted the urge to look up the ending on the internet.  I am so glad that I didn't.  When watching the movie I was constantly trying to figure out what the big secret was and as each minute went by in the movie my idea of what was it was changed.  My favorite thing about this movie was the fact that it was a documentary because I couldn't believe that any of this happened.  The film makers were very lucky to catch all of this on a camera because it truly made for a great story.
It is hard to discuss characters in a movie like this since it is a documentary but I am going to try to anyways.  I loved Nev even if he was a little naive (no pun intended).  He seems like a really nice guy and someone who makes friends quite easily.  A lot of the way he reacted to the situations he was in is the way that I would have reacted if I was stuck.  One of the filmmakers (Henry) was constantly making me laugh because he was genuinely a funny guy.  When they first showed him he was holding an Oh Henry! bar which for some reason made me crack up, so it was always interesting to hear the little comments that he throws in and also some of the logic he provides through out the movie.  The last character in the movie was Nev's brother Ariel.  He was my least favorite of the three but I still really liked him.  He wasn't afraid to prod his brother for answers to questions at 3 in the morning because they were siblings so Nev couldn't do anything that bad to him.  Ariel was also really funny when it came to the actual situation that they ran into because his reactions were just so ridiculous.  His reactions were the ones that everyone thinks in the very beginning of a bad or good situation but then never think them again because they are just to crazy.  With Ariel he would constantly think these thoughts out loud which made me laugh quite a bit.
There is one warning that does go along with this movie and that is do NOT look up the ending anywhere because the fun of the movie is learning with the filmmakers as secrets are unravelled.  If you look up the ending I guarantee that you will not like this movie as much if you know the ending.
I can see why this movie won a bunch of awards and I recommend it to anyone looking for a good movie to watch on a weekend or a week night if you have time. (:


Real Teen Rating~ A: You MUST watch this movie!!

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Tempest Rising by Tracy Deebs- Advanced Copy

The Gist

Tempest Rising
Buy it here and support our blog

Six years ago Tempest's mother left her and her family and swam out to see. She hasn't returned since. But Tempest is about to turn seventeen, and her mother promised she'd return by then. Because on her seventeenth birthday, Tempest will need her more than ever. On that day Tempest will need to decide whether she'll stay on land as a human or give herself to the ocean as her mother did six years ago - as a mermaid. Tempest wants nothing more than to stay human; surf the beautiful California waves and become an artist. Stay with her family and on-again-off-again (currently on-again) Mark. If she became a mermaid she couldn't keep those things in her life. And on top off that, she wouldn't be any better than her mother, just walking out on her family and life on land. Therefore, Tempest refuses to give in to the temptation of the ocean. As her seventeenth birthday approaches, a mysterious boy named Kona [Kai] suddenly appears in her life, popping in and out at the worst possible times. She doesn't know what to think - is he just human, or could he be something more? And if he is, will he try and convince her to choose the ocean over everything she loves? Tempest has to make an impossible decision; between Mark and Kona [Kai], between the ocean and land, and between what she wants and what she knows she has to do.

What We Think
Reviewed by Dream Catcher
Number of Pages: 341
Usually I start a review with a sort of introduction. The content of which varies. But for this book, I really don't have much to say that doesn't fit into one of the categories up for review. So I'll just jump right into the reviewing and try to be as brief and painless as possible. Like ripping off a bandage.
The author's obsessive use of adjectives knows no bounds. As funny as that may be to imagine, it's torturous to read. A statement can never be just one thing. Like, it's never just "his brown eyes". No, it has to be something like "his deep, amazing, soulful, sexy, dark brown eyes". It was painful. So, as you may have guessed, I'm critiquing her writing style, or maybe just the writing itself. There's no sugarcoating it. It was terrible. Simply horrible. Sorry. Maybe that's the style for romance-esque novels - maybe they're all like that - but nonetheless it wasn't good. Just painful. Another thing I cannot leave out is how much the word "sexy" is used. When describing something she could not for the life of her leave out that cursed word. It had to apply to everything. Mark's hair, Mark's eyes, Mark himself, Kona [Kai]'s voice, Kona [Kai]'s mysteriousness, Kona [Kai] himself. It was too much. I mean, seriously. Not everything is that sexy.  Also? Too many metaphors and/or similes. Not just that, but they were all overly-dramatic and sounded childish - and very out of place in the mind of a seventeen year old girl. If I were her, I'd take out most of the similes and metaphors and replace the ones left with something a little less ridiculous. Still, with the majority of them taken out, they'd total an amount more than the average YA novel has. Ugh. Just no. The writing killed this book.
Speaking of killing the book: characters. They weren't good. There's no other way to say it. They were just plain not good. Tempest Maguire. Was she supposed to be likable? She was whiny even though she claimed not to be, and weak even though she claimed to be strong, and just altogether bad. I do feel bad and everything because her mom took off and what not, but that just makes me hate the mother, not like the main character. Overall, Tempest did a bit too much complaining about her problems and not enough trying to fix them. Mark, Tempest's boyfriend, was not nearly as annoying as Tempest describes him. He asks her if she's okay when she nearly drowns and what does she do? Complain about how nosy he was! Jeez, give him a break. I actually felt bad for him, for having to deal with Tempest and her never-ending mood swings. And by never-ending, I do seriously mean never-ending. Her mood is constantly flopping from furious to mad to not-very-mad back to furious again. And Mark had to take all that without complaint, or she's just get more mad. Mark wasn't a complete fail, as far as characters go. He was pretty observant, actually, which is interesting. But other than that, he's the typical good-looking pawn of a boyfriend who's always the last to know everything having to do with their girlfriend. Poor Mark. Kona [Kai] was...ambiguous. Mysterious and, of course, supposedly amazingly hot. Whatever. He was a creep. CREEPER. He just appears out of nowhere to Tempest when she's alone and professes undying love for her. Okay, maybe he never said the words "undying love" but that doesn't really make him any less creepy. Can anyone say STALKER? Because that's basically what Kona [Kai] was. He was probably supposed to come off as mysterious and brooding and (at some point) lovable. Yeah, no. He was just a little too much. At the same time, however...I felt bad for him. Because he, too, had to deal with whatever Tempest decided to dish out. Lovely. But that doesn't make up for his creepiness either. Okay, you're probably wondering why I keep putting [Kai] after Kona's name. Repeatedly. The reason is, when I first read this - as an arc - Kona's name wasn't Kona. It was Kai. I actually had no idea it changed...until I went to my favorite book store and happened to see Tempest Rising on a pedestal. I picked it up and flipped through it for laughs...only to find that the beloved Kai was replaced with  a stranger...weirdly named Kona (take note the I use the word 'beloved' with much sarcasm). I couldn't believe it. They changed the name of a vital character at the last minute - meaning probably within a few weeks of the release date. I went to her website - where the synopsis of the book is - and the name was still Kai! On goodreads, the synopsis still reads Kai. I thought I'd gone completely insane, imagining the whole Kona occurrence. But then I saw some other reviews that had the [odd] Kona name. So I knew I wasn't COMPLETELY crazy. So, what's wrong with the name Kai, I'd like to know. Whatever. I just had to include it. Anyway. Every other character was pretty minor...well, there was her father. Sure. He was alright. I mean, it's not like I think he should win the DAD OF THE YEAR award or anything, but it's not like he was horrible. Very mellow, very go-with-the-flow, with some underlying sadness. Yup. That pretty much sums his character up nicely. But altogether though, the characters weren't good. If the writing killed the book,  the characters managed to resurrect it and then kill it again.
What else is there? Plot? Ugh, well it's supposed to be a romance, right? Romances don't have plots. They kind of just have romance with something thrown around them like tinsel on a Christmas tree (see what I did there? Ha, ha. That's what her similes were like - except HUNDREDS of them) to make them seem more than they really are. But, whatevs. The plot was Tempest whining and trying to decide between two almost equally unappealing guys. Ha, ha, it sounds like Twilight. Anyway, that was basically it. There wasn't much there, really. I mean, there was this thing with a sea witch...eh. I wasn't impressed, to say the least. I guess. I'm tired. It's way to late to be writing a bad review about a bad book. Sorry. That was my impersonation of Tempest - whining about things the reader doesn't particularly care about. So, yeah, I'm done talking about the plot. It wasn't interesting and for the entire book I didn't really care what happened to her or what she chose to become. Very lack-luster and to some extent non-existent. Hoorah.
The beginning to the book was a very corny letter from mother to daughter. Tempest's mother writing a letter to her before she left for the ocean - never to return. So the first horrendous line is "My Darling Tempest," if I want to be technical. Because of how gross of a line that is, I DON'T want to be technical. So the first line goes "I was just in your room, making your bed, looking at all your little-girl things, breathing in the soft, sweet  scent of you, and wondering how I'm ever going to live the next part of my life without you,". It comes right after the darling Tempest thing. Honestly, though, this wasn't any better. If anything, it's certainly more creepy. Ugh, yeah that wasn't good. The last line was better. For this book, it was fitting and a good ending. Predictable, but it's a romance. How could it not be predictable? I realize I'm bashing the romance genre. Sorry. I'm not saying it's a bad genre (just not necessarily my type of thing), just that they tend to be more romance than plot twists and that they're predictable. I thought those were accepted stereotypes of the genre. Sorry if I offend.
Finally, I'll review something easy: cover and title. Sadly, I wasn't all that crazy about either. At all. And I know I'm not the only one, because when I brought the book to school to read, people actually commented on the cover and scoffed at the title. The cover I find to be disgustingly dramatic and just TOO MUCH. Same with the the title. Tempest Rising. What is she rising FROM? Am I supposed to know? Is is metaphorical, too?! Goodness gracious. I don't know. All I do know is that I didn't like either the cover or the title, and if I was the publishing company, the thing at the very top of my to-do list would be to change both.
Overall...just no. I know that may not have been as painless as I said it would be - like a bandage - but at least it's truthful. I honestly didn't like that book at all and would not recommend it to my friends or enemies. The only reason I finished it - that I can think of - was to get it over with and because I HAD to. It was an ARC. I couldn't just NOT read it. I wish it could have been good. But it just wasn't. At all.

Real Teen Review ~ D- : If you have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to read.

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Exclusive Interview with Stacey Kade (Author of the Ghost and the Goth Series)

After falling in love with our guilty pleasure book The Ghost and the Goth and obtaining a copy of Queen of the Dead (the sequel) we quickly sent out a few questions for Stacey to answer!

RTR: What is your guilty pleasure?

Stacey: Curling up on the couch and watching Supernatural reruns. I've already seen all of them, and most of them more than once!

RTR: If you could have lunch with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

Stacey: Well, I'm certainly not going to pass up the opportunity to have lunch with someone who was dead, that's a pretty rare opportunity! :) And for the purposes of this question, I'm assuming that he or she will have been reincarnated and therefore able to enjoy lunch rather than being a ghost and/or a corpse because that would be a little...ewww. :)

In that case, I'm going to choose Jane Austen, assuming she'd be willing to dine with me. She is one of my favorite authors and based on the letters she left behind (the ones that her sister, Cassandra, did not destroy for privacy reasons) she was awesomely funny--sarcastic and sharp. Though my guess is she'd probably make fun of what I was wearing.

RTR: Super-Spies or Bow-Ties?

Stacey: Um, Super-Spies? I think?

RTR: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Stacey: Read as much as you can, and read what you love.

--Keep writing. Make yourself get to the end of the draft. Writing is revising (I didn't make that up. It's a quote, but I can't remember from who!)

--Write to entertain yourself first.

RTR:  What're your top five favorite songs on your iPod?

Stacey: Oooh. They change all the time, but at the moment:

How Soon Is Now? by T.A.T.U (It's a cover of The Smiths song. Some of you will recognize it as the Charmed theme song.)
Piece of Me by Britney Spears
If I Die Young by The Band Perry
E.T. by Katy Perry
Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri

RTR: If you could be a superhero, what would your name be and what power would you have?
Stacey: Oh, I so wouldn't want to be a superhero. So much responsibility! And impossible choices. How do you choose how to save if you can't save everyone and most likely, you wouldn't be able to do that? That kind of thing would keep me up at night!

But that being said, I'd like the power to stop time. Just freeze everyone and everything in place. As far as a name, is Time-Stopper too obvious? :) Has a nice allusion to "Crime Stopper." Or maybe something cool like Alarmyst or something, lol. You know, alarm, like alarm clock...oh, never mind. It's a good thing I'm not responsible for naming superheros! 

RTR: If you had Will's power would you consider it a gift or a curse?

Stacey: That's a tough one. I'm not sure it's ever just one or another, you know? I think every gift, no matter what it is, comes with downsides. Now, granted, those downsides may not ever outweigh the overall benefit of the gift, but there are likely moments when it feels as though they do. So, I would say gift. But I also think at Will's age, I would have definitely said curse. :)

RTR: How do you come up with all the different ghost characters (personalities, deaths, etc.)?

Stacey: I have no idea! :) They were a lot of fun, though. Um, my mom would probably say I was always a fairly morbid kid, so figuring out the various deaths wasn't all that difficult. As for their personalities, I just wanted them to seem as real and alive, so to speak, as the breathing characters in the book. Oh, and they had to be troublesome. :) That was key. But I felt that was pretty realistic, given that they'd been trapped for months or years in the in-between place without much hope of ever getting to the light.

RTR: Who do you relate to most in your books?
Stacey: Of the two main characters, Will. Definitely. But there are pieces of me in Alona, too. Her desire to control things to the nth degree and getting upset when they don't go the way she planned--that is very much me. 

RTR: Which book did you have more fun writing, The Ghost and the Goth or Queen of the Dead? Why?

Stacey: I'm not sure I can compare the two experiences. They were so completely different. I wrote G&G on a whim, just to see if I could do it and had a total blast in doing so. With Queen of the Dead, it was harder because I was worried about being consistent with the previous book while still providing a new story. But I learned so much with the rewrites on Queen of the Dead. That was its own kind of fun and a confidence-builder, if that makes sense.

RTR:  How did you come up with the ideas that The Order of the Guardianship are centered around?

Stacey: I'm a huge fan of Ghostbusters? :) Just kidding (though I totally am a fan--I challenge anyone to a quoting contest with that movie.) I knew that for the world in the books to be realistic, there couldn't be just one attitude toward ghosts. Not everyone could be concerned with getting the ghosts into their afterlife. There had to be people looking at it from the other side, seeing ghosts as something frightening and harmful to those who are still living. 

Great answers! Thanks for the interview, Stacey!

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Die For Me by Amy Plum- Advanced Copy

The Gist

Die For Me
Buy it here and support our blog

Kate Mercier hasn't been the same since her parents died in a car accident. She still has her sister, Georgia, but nothing can replace what her parents were to her. To try and take their minds off the accident, Kate and Georgia move to Paris, France, to live with their grandparents. Georgia goes back to normal almost instantly - out at clubs almost every night, dozens of new friends, everyone she knows at her beck and call. But Kate can't shake the crippling grief that came along with the death of her parents. She lies in bed for weeks, not having the energy or enthusiasm to care to get up. Finally, after having enough of watching her sister wallow in sadness all day, Georgia convinces her to get out of the house. Grudgingly, Kate agrees and goes to read in a nice little cafe. There, everything changes. Because that little cafe is where she first sees Vincent Delacroix. Handsome and mysterious, Kate is immediately drawn to him, despite her reluctance to let herself feel real emotions again. But there's something different about Vincent. Kate learns, much to her dismay, that he's a revenant, with a vague past and dark destiny. He's cursed with living forever and dying over and over to save other people's lives. And Kate doesn't know if she can deal with seeing him die over and over - even if she knows he's going to come back. After her parents she doesn't know if she can take the repeated heartbreak that death in her life would bring. But maybe love in life again might be worth it.


What We Think
Reviewed by Dream Catcher
Number of Pages: 341
I'm not sure what I expected when I picked up this book. I had mixed feelings about the cover and the title and cover and the synopsis sounded like just about every other YA novel I'd ever read. Girl's life isn't satisfactory, she meets an amazingly handsome and mysterious (usually brooding) teenage guy and her life magically becomes something out of a happily-ever-after-included fairy-tale. Ugh. But I had some faith in it for some reason. A good feeling about it. A random feeling, but still something. So I decided it was probably going to be either going to be really cheesy or really, really good. It was neither.
I'll start with something nice. The idea of it. The concept. The synopsis on the back of the book I read was annoyingly vague. I hope I did a little better than that with the gist. The only thing they said about Vincent was that he was handsome and mysterious with a "destiny".  "Destiny" could mean anything. I have a destiny. That doesn't mean I'm an immortal revenant who dies for everyone. But, bad summaries aside, the idea of what they were - revenants - was certainly interesting. Not quite angels or zombies or vampires. None of that. Something new. And to that I say FINALLY. Someone finally realizes that there's maybe another thing in this world to write a YA book about, other than vampires. Sheesh. Finally. So I really liked the whole revenant thing. Sounds like a new age in YA fiction. And (to my knowledge) who started it? Amy Plum. That's right. Finally. I worship at her feet for that. Something new to write about. What a novel concept. Love it.
So now I'll move on to plot. Similar to idea but different. Here's where the difference comes in: I wasn't as thrilled with the plot. Yeah, not so much. I mean, sure, there was a little something there. But it was a romance. And, generally, romance are focused more on ROMANCE (uh, duh) and less focused on plot twists... and such. That wasn't entirely the case here, but...it was close. It was mostly Kate having a vicious inner battle with her want for love and her fear of getting hurt. So a lot of I like him...but I can't! and I want to be with him...but I can't! Ah, the drama! For a book that was basically a romance the plot was fantastic. But overall, it was just okay...maybe a little better than okay.
Here comes my favorite part of the review: CHARACTERS. They can make or break the book in most readers' minds. Certainly mine. Seriously, though, when's the last time you've heard of someone liking a book but hating the characters? NEVER. Because characters rule the world. Well, a reader's world. Maybe. Anyway, I move on to  say something review-like, as opposed to my seemingly-endless rants about the aspects of a book in general. Beginning with the main protagonist, Kate. Let me first point out that she has the most nicknames of any character I've ever read about. Katya, Katie-Bean, Katie-Lou, Katie, Mon Ange. Ugh. Don't even get me started on that last one. Ugh. 'My angel'? Give me a break. Ugh. That's where the romance gets to be a little too much for me: disgustingly affectionate pet-names. But back to Kate herself. One word to describe her would be indecisive. She'd make up her mind then change it then change it then change it. And change it. At times it could get a little tiresome. She also needs some new shock-absorbers or something. Because whenever Vincent would tell her anything - no matter how tame the topic - she'd go into shock, or start crying, thinking she couldn't handle it. But other than that she was a good character. Very articulate, to say the very least. There was a lot of character development with her - which was great. In the end she was much stronger and even a little wiser. So overall she was a good main characters that was actually very likable. Vincent next. Hmmm. I really don't know what to say about him. I loved him in the beginning. He wasn't corny or cliché. He was charming and sweet. But as the book progressed he got to be a little sappy. It was almost as if Amy Plum had watched a few too many Hallmark movie marathons while writing the book and Vincent took the brunt of it, becoming an almost-sickening immortal combination of all of those heart-throbs in the movies. Well. It wasn't THAT bad. But I liked him a lot more in the beginning than the end. Sorry, Vincent. Just to be clear, it's not like I DIDN'T like him in the end. I still really liked his character. He was just VERY romance-y at the end, but that's okay. He means well. And Kate and him really are good for each other. Cute together. Moving on: Jules. Vincent's best friend and fellow revenant. I don't really know why, but I really liked his character. He was kind of a creep,  but in an almost lovable way. Like a I'm-a-revenant-who-cares-about-you-despite-my-earlier-jerkiness way. I always loved the sections of the book he was in. I just thought he was really funny; someone who really cares about you but also loves having a good laugh - sometimes at your expense. I dunno, I really liked him. Next: Ambrose, a fellow dead-man-walking and friend to Vincent and Jules. He's kind of like Jules in the way that I loved his character but wasn't sure why. He's just all-around likable, I guess. Very genuine. He was always very welcoming and nice.  He was a great character. Then there was Charlotte and Charles: twin revenants. Charlotte was really nice and almost delicate ( paying no mind to her mastery of karate). She was very likable and a great addition to the story. Charles was important, but at the same time he was just kind of there. He was funny, then a complete jerk. Basically he was a contradiction. But I think that was the point. So great job there. Hmm. How about Jean-Baptiste? Yes, he was also interesting. He was the wise, older leader revenant. He was a jerk, too, but at the same time you knew it was only so that he could protect his fellow revenants. So for that I have to respect him at least a little. Overall, I think of him as an almost-complicated, very mysterious character. Absolutely needed and well-portrayed in the writing. SO MANY CHARACTERS. Uh...Gaspard next because it'll be quick. He was a twitchy revenant who I found to be very random and almost completely not needed.  Maybe he'll be of more importance in the second book. If not, it's a shame, because he's the type of character that could be really interesting with his sad past - before being a revenant. I hope he plays more of a part in the next book. Then there's Jeanne. The completely human cook to the revenants. She was also kind of random, but her doting grandmotherly ways were charming and I honestly liked her character a lot. Georgia was superficial and had a temper (not to mention she was kind of clueless when it came to judging character) but overall she was vital to the story. She was a loyal sister and story-starting raiser-of-spirits (and by spirits I mean the feeling kind, not the ones that float around haunted houses because that would really just make no sense at all). She was very real, which makes a great character (whether or not you like them or are even supposed to like them). As a whole the characters were very well-written. They came to life; they were very real, and I liked reading about them.
Since I'm saying how very well-written the characters were, I might as well go on about the writing itself next. This is always hard to review. The writing style of any book is a personal opinion that varies greatly from person to person. Someone could love the way so-an-so author writes, but someone else could completely hate it. But I guess everything in a book is like that. So here I go! I thought the writing was really very good. Like I said above, Kate was very articulate, and the book was in first person, so it was a very put-together, mature-sounding style. Sometimes it got to be a little much and the put-together quality just became stiffness. But that was only occasionally, and overall it was great. Refreshing and different from other YA novels. Good, good.
Okay, I have to say something about the setting. Paris. The city of lights. Or is it love? No, French is the language of love. That's it. Eh, either way it really fits in with the story nicely. I liked how it was all in Paris - because I've wanted to go there for a long time - but I did find it to be a tad random. But that's just because I haven't read many books set in a country other than the one I've lived in. But come to find out, Amy Plum lives in France, so maybe the Paris setting isn't so random after all. I just found that out a few days ago. The whole time I was reading I was thinking well, this is really cool...but what's with Paris? Now it all makes sense, and I think that the unique setting was a nice touch. Very exotic. 
Now on to the beginning. There's a prologue. Sometimes an author - or a story - can get away with a prologue. Can pull it off and make it sound right and needed to make the story complete. Sometimes. Sadly, here it just seemed pointless. No, it didn't just seem pointless, it WAS pointless. It was a short prologue; a paragraph or two. It was a very lack-luster beginning. If I were the publisher, or the editor, or the author I'd take out the prologue and just start the book off at chapter one. The annoying thing isn't that the prologue is short or superfluous (which it still is), it's that the entire prologue appears later in the book, word for word. I hate that. I mean, you couldn't have come up with a few more sentences to make up for ones you've already used? Oh well. Maybe it's just me. But I found that annoying. Okay, moving on, the first line is, "The first time I had seen the statue in the fountain I had no idea what Vincent was,". It was okay. It's not brilliance, but it certainly didn't turn me away. I think she could do better. The way it is, it's a little cliché.
Similarly, the ending. And by ending, I could either mean the last 50 pages or so, or the very last line. I might as well mention both. The last 50 pages (or so) were just okay. Leading up to a climactic point that wasn't all that climactic. What I mean is, for a climax, I wasn't exactly jumping at every chance to read. The last few pages were the cheesiest parts of the book. The part that made me not like Vincent as much as in the beginning. It was just a little too romancey, ooey-gooey-lovey-dovey for my taste. But that might just be me. The last line was really good. Disregarding the chapter as a whole, the last paragraph was a good ending to the book. It's kind of mysterious. I like mysterious. It's not a cliff-hanger, but it definitely makes me want to read the next book, to see what happens with Kate and Vincent. I am actually pretty excited to read the next in the series (I'm going to have to wait a while, seeing as I just read this ARC), so I guess that means the ending couldn't be that bad. All in all, the ending was okay, maybe a little more than okay. 
I'll finish with something purely superficial: the cover and the title. Now the cover I have on my ARC and the cover that's going to be on the actual book. Mine has a dramatic-looking Kate-girl riding a florescently red boat upon dark Paris waters. Yeah. Very dramatic. At first I hated it. But it's really grown on me. Sadly, now I like it more than what the cover is actually going to be! Ah, well. You win some you lose some. The new cover is mostly red and pink. A completely new Kate-girl is standing with her back to us, wearing a long RED dress.  There's a lot of curly-cue things embellishing the title. The thing with this one is that it doesn't really have anything to do with the actual story. At least the other one made a whole lot of sense when you read the book. Oh, well. Either way, the cover isn't the GREATEST but I still think it'd be intriguing in a bookstore. So that's good. The title is even better, I think. Again, at first I thought it was a little over-the-top, a little too dramatic. But now I think it's great. A little dark, a little mysterious. Just the type of thing a teen likes. So I really think that was well done. 
There. Viola! Review completed. Overview alert! Here it comes. The idea was FANTASTIC but the plot lacked pizazz and some originality. The characters and writing were the best parts of the book, which is really good, considering those are two of the most important parts of what makes a book enjoyable. The setting was kind of random but added something unique and spunky to the story. The beginning was good, but could've been better; same with the ending. Cover and title grew on me and now I love and accept them. THERE. So by now I think you know how I liked the book. I'll stop with the never-ending rant in a moment. One last thing. I think you should go to Amy Plum's website, http://www.amyplumbooks.com, (easy enough to remember) and go to extras. Then click on the link that says Vincent's Point of View. I read it just a few hours ago, and I think it's really cute. And cool to see things from his perspective. Don't worry, it's not eons of pages long. But I enjoyed it.  Okay, and I have to say this: (forgive my unforgivable corniness) REVENANTS are to DIE for!


Real Teen Rating ~ A- : Read it!

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