With Every Letter Review

Today I’m going to review With Every Letter by: Sarah Sundin.

In the height of WWII, two people find refuge and friendship in anonymous letter writing. Lt. Mellie Blake doesn’t fit in because of her heritage. Being half Filipino and half American, she grew up with the cruelty of children making fun of her odd looks. She hasn’t ever had a friend. Lt. Tom MacGilliver can’t escape the legacy of his murderous father. His whole life goal is to show people he isn’t his father. These two lonely souls will find comfort in each other’s letters and also be forced to grow due to the circumstances around them.

This book was so sweet. I really got completely absorbed in it. I love the backdrop of WWII and the flight nursing program that Millie was involved in. Sarah Sundin really knows how to transport you back in time. I found myself so wrapped up in the war effort through the characters eyes and I couldn’t put this book down.

I am so impressed by how much the characters grow in this book. They naturally come out of their shells and learn how to live without the oppressive weights that had been hanging over them. Mellie and Tom are a great pairing. I loved their love for the Lord and how they had so much in common even though they were so different.

I really loved the various themes in this book. They really made you think. One was about gossip, which a few characters struggled with. Originally, I was kind of bothered by how gossiping was represented because it made me realize how easy it is to gossip. I fall into more than I would like to admit.

The other big theme was presented through Mellie and had to do with mercy. I never thought of mercy quite like Mellie did. She wanted to be merciful in all that she did and sometimes she confused mercy for something else. I just think this is a really interesting thing that Sarah Sundin chose to explore in this book. It definitely made me stop to think.

This book was an amazing read and I couldn’t help but escape into if for a while. I thought it was a wise choice that Mellie and Tom did all their growing without the other’s presence. They definitely helped one another through their letters, but they didn’t change because of the other. This isn’t normally the typical thing in a romance novel and I found it really refreshing.

My only slight complaint is that I wished we could have seen a bit more of the letters between Mellie and Tom because I felt like they feel in love a bit too quickly. Then I realized there were a whole lot of letters we didn’t see that it made more sense for them to be in love. I totally understand that Sarah Sundin avoided this to stop some repetition that would probably occur and it helped keep the story moving, but I almost missed it.

Overall, this book was excellent. It’s a very sweet read.

Ella, The Slayer Review

Next up for a review is Ella, The Slayer by: A.W. Exley.

The Great War has left many scarred and boys are just starting to find their way home in the year 1919. Ella’s father is among one of those that the war ravished. He mostly sits and drools, but Ella still hopes for his return to his faculties. In his incapacitated state, Ella’s step-mother rules the house and exiled Ella to being a common servant. The war isn’t the only thing that has left the world broken. A mysterious disease killed many, but they didn’t stay dead and they hunger for the living…

I totally just stumbled upon this book while I was trying to figure out what I wanted to read next. The premise sounded interesting. I really love retellings of fairy tales, so that is initially what drew me to this book. I don’t really know how I feel about zombies in books, but I thought it was a really interesting twist to this retelling and it was handled really well.

I really liked Ella. I loved how she cared for her dad and friend that both came back from the war scared (emotionally and physically). I thought it was interesting how she couldn’t stand up to her step-mother (which could have been explored just a tad bit more) and she would be fearless when slaying the vermin (zombies). It shows that she did what she had to do in a world that didn’t make sense and this made her character feel more real.

The slayer aspect was really interesting as well. I really liked how A.W. Exley really added depth to Ella through this occupation of hers. The people didn’t want to damn their souls with killing the vermin, just in case there would be consequences in the hereafter, so they let Ella do it because she was the first one to kill the undead. Since she was already damned, what would it hurt for her to keep dispatching the vermin? I really felt for her throughout all of this.

I really liked the one chapter that was in Seth’s perspective and I would have loved to read more from him. It’s kind of odd that he only got one chapter in the whole book. I really liked his distinct voice that came through in this section.

At the end of the book, A.W. Exley asks the reader if she should write a sequel. I think this book does a good job standing alone, but a sequel could expand more on the war with the zombies. She definitely left it open for a sequel, but I don’t think it is hugely necessary. My other worry about having a sequel is that Ella & Seth’s relationship will be stepped up to the next level and I personally just don’t enjoy reading explicit stuff in relationships. There definitely is the potential for that if there is a sequel, but I honestly don’t know if A.W. Exley would write it like that. I haven’t read anything else from her to give me a better idea if she would do that or not. (I definitely want to try out some of her other books, though.)

Lastly, I have to mention how beautiful the cover is! That and I was kind of bothered by the line spacing in the eBook. This is totally a formatting issue and nothing at all against the writing. I’m just not a fan of reading the book when it’s double-spaced, but the writing and story were so good that I tried my best to ignore it.

XGeneration: You Don't Know Me Review (I Didn't Finish The Book)

Today I’m going to review a book that I couldn’t finish. This book is XGeneration: You Don’t Know Me by Brad Magnarella.

I didn’t finish this book so I can’t really give a good synopsis of it, but it’s mostly about these two teens that are just starting high school. It’s set in the 1980s and they are discovering that they have powers, or something like that.

This book just dragged on and on and on and on… The writing was good and that’s the only thing that kept me reading for as long as I did. I only got twenty-five percent of the way through this book, but in all that time not much of anything noteworthy happened. Brad Magnarella focused way too much on their day to day life.

I thought the characters were interesting, but I definitely thought Scott was more interesting than Janis. She almost seemed ridiculous. She loved sports, which means she should be kind of tough, but she acted like such a scared little baby at times.

I really was drawn to this book because of the powers it advertised, but barely anything was mentioned or figured out about those powers by the time I stopped reading. The reviews for this book kept mentioning that if you loved X-Men you would love this book, so I was convinced I would love it. I was very disappointed.

A smaller thing that kind of grated on me is how Brad Magnarella kept mentioning girl’s chests when he described them. Okay, I can totally understand that when it’s in Scott’s POV, being a guy, he would mention this when describing the looks of a girl, but Janis wouldn’t have thought about it. Since the author is a guy, I could understand why he would mention this, but there are way more that you could describe to give readers a picture of what is going on or how people look without this. Really this didn’t happen often, but by the second time it mildly annoyed me.

I do really love the cover of this book, though.

Also Known As Review

This time I am going to review Also Known As by: Robin Benway.

Margaret didn’t have a conventional childhood. When other kids were fighting on the playground in elementary school, she was breaking into safes and cracking locks. Her parents are both spies and they raised her to be the same. Now, Maggie is going on her first solo mission, which is to befriend Jesse Oliver to get information about his dad. The mission gets complicated when her feelings get in the way…

This book was very entertaining. I totally thought Maggie’s safe-cracking ability seemed unreasonable for her age when I was going into the book, but I think Robin Benway did a great job of making it believable. She gave Maggie a good amount of technical knowledge about it that made it feel reasonable.

I really enjoyed all the characters in this book. Roux was probably my favorite character. She’s just enough spunky and vulnerable. She made things fun and she was full of surprises. The only thing I wished about her is that I could’ve gotten a better description of what she looked like. I couldn’t quite picture her. In fact, I really wish all the character descriptions were a bit more detailed.

Maggie was great. I loved how she talked to herself and needed to give herself pep talks. I totally am the same way and I really appreciated that she was like that. I really liked her voice in the book, which is good because the book is fully in her perspective.

My few complaints about the book are the beginning and the ending. The beginning felt a bit too much like she was going to tell us the whole story of her life. It was just too much of filling us in to get up to speed, but it gets into the story fairly quickly, so it wasn’t super bothersome. The ending felt a bit rushed. I really liked the pacing of the book before that point, but all of a sudden it speeds to the end after. I did enjoy the ending, it just seemed to all happen so quickly when the rest of the book didn’t seem to be passed quite as fast.

(Kind of Spoilers!) For some reason during all of this book, I was suspicious of the Collective. I totally thought there would be a twist and the Collective would actually be evil and Maggie and her parents just didn’t know. I mention this because that suspicion was totally wrong. I have no idea why I felt that way, but something in the writing or plot just gave me the impression of it. (End Spoilers.)

Overall, I really liked this book. It kept me really entertained and I definitely will read the next book in the series.

The Madmen's City Review

Today I am reviewing The Madmen’s City by: Cady Vance.

Gwen Kane’s dad is the famous vigilante Phantom and she is training with him. There’s another vigilante around town named Ethos and he isn’t afraid to kill. When Phantom is framed for a murder he didn’t commit, Gwen will do everything she can to prove his innocence, even going out on the streets at night and teaming up with Ethos.

I absolutely loved this book. I am a huge fan of superheroes/vigilantes in stories, but this is actually the first book I’ve read about them. This book reminded me a lot of the feel of the show Arrow, which I love as well.

Cady Vance did an excellent job with writing this book. It played like a movie across my eyes and I could visualize everything. Typically with reading, I visualize it to a point, but this book went way beyond that. Through the descriptions and writing, I could see everything that was going on.

I really liked the characters in this book, especially Silas Snow. His personality really showed through and I’m really glad Cady Vance decided to write the book from both Silas and Gwen’s perspective.

The pacing of this book was perfect. While reading I just kept wishing there would be a sequel. I read this book in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down. Nothing felt forced in this book and the things the characters were able to do seemed very true to who they were.

I also really liked the aspects of this book that are focusing on good and evil. Gwen and her father don’t believe in killing the bad guys, they give them to the police to be arrested and put to trial. Ethos isn’t afraid to kill criminals. One of the most interesting parts of this book the whole back and forth debate on whether killing the bad guys was okay. I definitely think this could have been expanded even further in the book, but the tastes of it presented in the book are enough to make you think.

The ending was very satisfying, but maybe a tiny bit rushed. One small thing at the end I felt confused why it happened, but the author acknowledges what she is doing it by having the characters give a reason for it.

This book was amazing and I highly recommend it. This is a book I can totally see myself rereading.

(Spoilers!) Lastly, I am so glad that when Silas wants to kiss Gwen in the middle of the climax of the book, he doesn’t and he acknowledges that it isn’t the time. It’s really refreshing that this book wasn’t ruined by the ‘everything is falling apart around us and we are in a time crunch, but we are just going to stand here and make-out for a bit’ that so many movies have. It’s so unrealistic and stupid when they do that. (End Spoilers.)