The Winner's Crime | Book Review

Title: The Winner's Crime
Series: (The Winner's Crime #2)
Author: Marie Rutkoski
Genre: Fantasy, War, Romance (pfft, yeah right..)
Publication Date: March 3rd 2015
Format: ebook

The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement... if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.

"I don't mind being a moth. I would probably start eating silk if it meant that I could fly."

I would've picked this for my senior quote if I read it earlier...

I am done
 I am so done
  I am fucking done. 

Marie Rutkoski says:

"This book was exhausting to write and took a while for me to finish (having a baby in the middle of it might have had something to do with it)."

So um what the hell was that? Was that the reason? Was it pregnancy and hormones? I bet it was.

Excuse me, Marie Rutkoski.. What have I ever done to you, huh?
She was able to change a very bad situation to a much worst one...


So this whole book was fascinating, but it was also very frustrating. First of all, the misunderstandings! The FUCKING. MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 
If Arin would just fucking shut up and listen for once, half of the problems in this book would've been solved (I was about to write "been solved faster" but then I remembered they don't actually get solved..)

I'm just so sad. I'm angry. I don't know how to feel.

I want to have a girls night with Kestrel just holding her to tell her everything is going to be okay. Everyone is against Kestrel in this freaking book!
She's the one who gets to make the hardest decisions, and she's the one who gets blamed for everything, and she's the one that everybody leaves. 

My little poor Kestrel..

Look, I don't hate Arin. I love him. And as much as understandable his situation is, I wish he just shut the fuck up for once and realize the shit he's doing. His insecurities made me love him so much more to be honest. Like, how many male characters in YA book are concerned that they'er too ugly? 

I thought Verex was going to be a problem but aww he's so cute. 

Overall, I found the political aspects of this book so much more interesting than the first one and I absolutely loved the complexity behind it. The characters continue to wow me with their intelligence. It is a thrilling read full of chess action, a tragic romance and rich characters. I felt so much reading it (mostly the feeling of wanting to throw it against a wall). The wait for the third one will be torture..

I have a few theories that I might share close to The Winner's Kiss's release but for now let us keep it at that. 

Confess | Book Review

Title: Confess
Series: Standalone
Author: Colleen Hoover (a.k.a queen)
Genre: New Adult, Romance
Publication Date: March 10th 2015
Format: ebook

Auburn Reed has her entire life mapped out. Her goals are in sight and there’s no room for mistakes. But when she walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job, she doesn’t expect to find a deep attraction to the enigmatic artist who works there, Owen Gentry.

For once, Auburn takes a risk and puts her heart in control, only to discover Owen is keeping major secrets from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.

The last thing Owen wants is to lose Auburn, but he can’t seem to convince her that truth is sometimes as subjective as art. All he would have to do to save their relationship is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin…

In Confess, Colleen Hoover was trying a different style of writing, or at least, it felt that way for me. A lot of things were changed like pacing and timing and the twist aspect.

In most of Colleen's books -if not all of them- she always has a huge twist that gets revealed at little after halfway point. The first half is all happy and shit to keep you off track and then the second half is when shit goes down and we're trying to fix it. 

This one was a bit different. She had twists throughout the whole novel that it was hard to know what the big twist is. Also the timing the events happened stretched out in a way I'm not used to reading in Colleen's books.

And I must say, I enjoy this style so much more. This is the 7th book I read by Colleen and each book published is better than the last, it's amazing.

The thing about Colleen's books too, is that she always has her characters do jobs that are not used a lot in the New Adult genre.
Our main character, Auburn, is a hair-stylist. Our male main character, Owen, is an artist.

Plot wise, this book kept me interested from start to finish. There was always something that I needed to know the answer for. She was painting a picture for us, starting from the basics to the whole entire view. the complexity of the characters' lives was fascinating.

I loved the characters! Auburn was so much fun and even though she's really having a hard time, she finds the strength to smile and do whatever. There was also a beautiful side of Auburn that would be a spoiler so let's not.

Owen is a new book boyfriend for me, OMG. -wink,wink- I love him. He was so sweet and so selfless and I felt so freaking bad for him, God! His job was so cool and I wished there was a studio scene at the end because I loved his job so much.

So if you don't know, the book has pictures that were painted by Danny O'Connor, who Colleen partnered with. They were so beautiful and heart-breaking.
The pictures are connected to the dedication at the beginning of the book. Which you'll get when you read the book, but the dedication made some things very hard to read.
I died so many times reading this book. I can't, man. I'm so excited to read even more and more Colleen because she's amazing and love her stories.

I have to say that Confess might be my new favorite. I still think Ugly Love seriously hit hard and Miles is actually my favorite male character of all time. But, I feel like Confess was more enjoyable to me. I do believe this one is my favorite out of her books.

Beat that November 9!

Overall, I enjoyed every single character and every single scene in this book and I honestly tried to find a flaw since I'm really picky with my 5 stars but you know what? This book deserves it.

White Hot Kiss | Book Review

Title: White Hot Kiss
Series: (The Dark Elements #1)
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance
Publication Date: February 25th 2014
Format: ebook

One kiss could be the last. 

Seventeen-year-old Layla just wants to be normal. But with a kiss that kills anything with a soul, she's anything but normal. Half demon, half gargoyle, Layla has abilities no one else possesses. 

Raised among the Wardens—a race of gargoyles tasked with hunting demons and keeping humanity safe—Layla tries to fit in, but that means hiding her own dark side from those she loves the most. Especially Zayne, the swoon-worthy, incredibly gorgeous and completely off-limits Warden she's crushed on since forever. 

Then she meets Roth—a tattooed, sinfully hot demon who claims to know all her secrets. Layla knows she should stay away, but she's not sure she wants to—especially when that whole no-kissing thing isn't an issue, considering Roth has no soul. 

But when Layla discovers she's the reason for the violent demon uprising, trusting Roth could not only ruin her chances with Zayne… it could brand her a traitor to her family. Worse yet, it could become a one-way ticket to the end of the world..

I'm actually still reading this right now and I'm already planning a review. I have 3 chapters left and a bomb just freaking dropped on me, I can't even..


And now, I just finished it. Holy moly.


White Hot Kiss was definitely a pleasant surprise. Everyone kept saying it was a Paranormal Romance but I felt it was so much more than that. Urban Fantasy is more like it.

This book follows our main character Layla, who is Half-Demon, Half-Warden(Gargoyle). And if that's not freaking cool already I don't know what is.
The story involved so many cool and unique aspects that remain untouched most of the time, like Hell and Satan and angels and God. 

I love that world, and all the mythical creatures. I think Jennifer L. Armentrout did very well with the story line and plot.
I expected to just love the romance without the paranormal parts but damn! Everything was awesome!

White Hot Kiss involves a Love-Triangle. One of the best out there, I loved it. It was the childhood friend vs. new bad boy type of love triangle, see, I usually automatically pick the bad boy but with this one, I wasn't so sure.

Our first male character, is Roth. The moody, sassy and hottie bad boy. Roth is a full-fledged Demon, and seriously I fell in love with him the moment he appeared in the book. Literally, the first line he says in the book is "And you should kiss my ass. How about that?" I just love the guy I can't help it.
Though, I'd like to point out that Roth isn't the asshole type of badboy he was actually really nice. Aside from the constant sexual comments he made.

The other character is, Zayne. Zayne is the protective, super kind and gentle kind of guy. He's been taking care of Layla ever since she was little. And Layla - being the hormonal teenager she was- obviously had a wittle crush on Zayne. The thing about Zayne though, is that he wasn't the kind of friend who would be like "Oh I can't see you as a woman." and "You're like my little sister." and then when someone suddenly tries to even look at her he transforms 'Boyfriend Mode' NO. He was the kind of guy who was honest to his feelings but for an actual legitimate reason, he couldn't be with her.

As for teams, even though it was very hard to decide, I do still love my bad boy. 
Team Roth!


Overall, I highly enjoyed the world and the characters. I loved the romance and the love triangle and I can't wait for more. The reason I gave this a 4/5 Star rating is because even though the book was relatively long, nothing really happened. But other than that, something that bothered me is that sometimes the author would spare us explanations that we obviously needed to comprehen the scenes. I seriously read this scene, thinking the person in it was Zayne and after 5 pages she tells me it's actually not.

So, yeah. Loved this and can't wait to read Stone Cold touch.