Genre: Young Adult

Review: The Diviners – Libba Bray

Review: The Diviners – Libba Bray

The Diviners is a very complex story, with historical aspects from the ’20s in NYC, magic, ghosts, weird powers, and many characters to follow on their creepy adventures. My The Diviners review: I had no idea what to expect when I picked up The Diviners, I hadn’t really heard much about it before I bought my own copy, after received an ARC of Lair of Dreams… What I got was a complex story, following several characters just discovering their new ‘powers’ of divining, seeing the future – or the past by touching an object – healing and others. Following several characters took a while getting used to, because they were all well fleshed out with a distinctive voice, however, through […]

Posted 22 September, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 19 Comments
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Review: Angelfall – Susan Ee

Review: Angelfall – Susan Ee

Angelfall is a dystopian story in which angels aren’t necessarily the good guys, and where Penryn has to use all her wit and cunning to survive. My Angelfall review: This whole story was dark and disturbing – but still delicious if that makes any sense at all. Penryn is a very strong young woman; she has had to be for years before the attack. With her mom conversing with demons and her little sister Paige in a wheel chair, Penryn had to be the responsible party of her family after her dad took off. The angels in this story are so scary and mean it seems like they all hail from hell rather than from heaven – all except Raffe, […]

Posted 4 September, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 18 Comments
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Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson – John Green & David Levithan

Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson – John Green & David Levithan

Will Grayson, Will Grayson started out pretty slow, and is a fairly weird story that is also strangely compelling. As the story unfolded, I found that I really enjoyed these two Will characters, but the real star was Tiny. My Will Grayson, Will Grayson review: I didn’t really know what to think of Will Grayson, Will Grayson before I started reading it – having only read the summary but no reviews, I was ready to be swept away. And after the slow start, I was. I really enjoyed the Will Grayson chapter the most, will grayson was a little more difficult to connect to, mostly because he himself thought he wasn’t someone who was worth getting to know. And while […]

Posted 20 August, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 24 Comments
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Review: The One Thing – Marci Lyn Curtis

Review: The One Thing – Marci Lyn Curtis

The One Thing is one of the sweetest and most strangely heartbreaking stories I have ever read! My The One Thing review: As soon as I started reading The One Thing, I knew this story was different. And so it was, on every level, too. Maggie was a character I didn’t exactly loved at the beginning, but she sure did intrigue me from the start. What could a blind girl have done to actually have a probation officer? I quickly fell completely in love with Maggie though, both because of her sarcastic wit and because while she was kind of trying to wallow in her blindness, sad about not being able to play soccer anymore, she proved that she had […]

Posted 18 August, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 8 Comments
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Review: The Last Time We Say Goodbye – Cynthia Hand

Review: The Last Time We Say Goodbye – Cynthia Hand

Tissues! The Last Time We Say Goodbye is one of those books… and I just can’t stop crying right now. My The Last Time We Say Goodbye review: This is a pretty tough read, dealing with a difficult and heartbreaking subject. And it definitely should come with a trigger warning! At the very beginning of The Last Time We Say Goodbye, we learn that Lex’s brother Ty committed suicide, and Lex is seeing a therapist who first suggests that she be medicated, then when she vetoes that, he tells her she should write. The first and the last. Especially the last time she saw Ty happy. And Lex is numb. She goes through the motions, sharing flash-backs that seem so […]

Posted 3 August, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 18 Comments
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Review: Obsidian – Jennifer L. Armentrout

Review: Obsidian – Jennifer L. Armentrout

Obsidian was a little confusing in places, and I was quite frustrated with Katy because of her suffering from something very close to insta-love/lust when it came to Daemon. She said he was a jerk, but then she went all googly-eyed at the thought of him anyway. My Obsidian review: There are many tropes in young adult novels – and sadly most of those I don’t really enjoy – that were present in Obsidian. More or less absent parents, as Katy’s father had died, and her mother worked a lot, it was almost as if Katy lived on her own. Also, Katy was really the girl-next-door, at least in her own mind, and so Daemon’s attention, even when he was […]

Posted 30 July, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 28 Comments
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Review: The Leveller – Julia Durango

Review: The Leveller – Julia Durango

The Leveller is a little bit like Matrix for YA, but different… People are playing online games by leaving their body in a recliner, while they are having fun (at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be!) in the virtual world. My The Leveller review: The Leveller started off strong with Nixy in the virtual world to collect a teen to get him back home and conscious to his mother. Getting to know her, the family dynamics as well as her two best friends Chang and Moose helped building the story from the start. The game MEEP seemed to be quite innocent and fun when Nixy first went in to catch someone, but when the CEO of the MEEP […]

Posted 9 July, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 12 Comments
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Review: The Stars Never Rise – Rachel Vincent

Review: The Stars Never Rise – Rachel Vincent

Quite fast paced, and set in a very bleak future, The Stars Never Rise is a solid start to Vincent’s new series. My The Stars Never Rise review: At the beginning of The Stars Never Rise, I thought the story had similarities to one of my favorite urban fantasy series Downside Ghosts. Because the it is set in the future, after a big battle, and the church now rules the remaining humans. Nina, the main character, goes to school, and wants to enter the church to become a teacher. However, she also often breaks the rules – even if most of the time that is to keep herself and her younger sister Mellie alive – and she lies by omission […]

Posted 7 July, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 14 Comments
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Review: Undertow – Michael Buckley

Review: Undertow – Michael Buckley

Undertow is a story about differences, acceptance, xenophobia and how important it is to believe in what we think is right. My Undertow review: Undertow is like reading a fantasy fictional version of current affaires in the world right now! People afraid of everything that is ‘other’. Refugees being held between a wall and the sea, with only the beach to give them shelter. The Alpha arrived three years before the story starts, and this species usually lived under water, like many different species of what we’d call mermaids. They loathe being called mermaids, though, they are selkies, nix, and other names that not only look different, but who have different jobs to keep their universe going round. In the […]

Posted 6 July, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 10 Comments
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Review: Fire Colour One – Jenny Valentine

Review: Fire Colour One – Jenny Valentine

Fire Colour One is a strange, sad and slightly twisted tale in which Iris finally meets her father, and her whole past kind of falls into place just at the moment when she needs it the most. My Fire Colour One review: Iris is a strange, remote character who has an uncanny ability to observe and see the see the essence of the other characters clearly, even when they think they show the world what the world wants to see. The prose is a little off-beat, but stunningly beautiful. The action in the present time of Fire Colour One takes place over a short time, maybe a few weeks at most. However, Iris brings the reader with her back to […]

Posted 1 July, 2015 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 3 Comments
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