RBD Review #16 | Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle #3) by Maggie Stiefvater

Book info:
Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle #3) by Maggie Stiefvater | Published 2014 | 391 pages | Teen fantasy

Summary:
There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up.
Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs.
The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost.
Friends can betray.
Mothers can disappear.
Visions can mislead.
Certainties can unravel (courtesy of Goodreads).

My thoughts:
Read April 29-May 07, 2016 | 4/5 stars

RBD Review #15 | the princess saves herself in this one by Amanda Lovelace

Book info:
the princess saves herself in this one by Amanda Lovelace | Published 2016 | 154 pages | Poetry, Feminist, Non-Fiction, Contemporary, Mental Illness, Mental Health

Summary:
“ah, life-
the thing
that happens
to us
while we’re off
somewhere else
blowing on
dandelions
& wishing
ourselves into
the pages of
our favorite
fairy tales.”

a poetry collection divided into four different parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, & you. the princess, the damsel, & the queen piece together the life of the author in three stages, while you serves as a note to the reader & all of humankind. explores life & all of its love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, & inspirations (courtesy of Goodreads).

My thoughts:

Read May 05, 2016 | 5/5 stars

RBD Review #14 | The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater

Book info:
The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater | 439 pages | Published 2013 | Teen fantasy (external image)

Summary:
If you could steal things from dreams, what would you take?
Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself.
One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams.
And sometimes he's not the only one who wants those things.
Ronan is one of the raven boys—a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan's secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface—changing everything in its wake.
Of The Raven Boys, Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Maggie Stiefvater's can't-put-it-down paranormal adventure will leave you clamoring for book two." Now the second book is here, with the same wild imagination, dark romance, and heart-stopping twists that only Maggie Stiefvater can conjure (courtesy of Goodreads).

My thoughts:
Read April 25-28, 2016 | 5/5

RBD Review #12 | The Martian by Andy Weir

Book info:
The Martian by Andy Weir | 435 pages | Published 2011 | Adult, Sci Fi

Summary:
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive — and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him? (courtesy of Goodreads)

My thoughts:
Read April 6-14, 2016 | 5 stars

*NEW* RBD Review #30 | The Merciless (The Merciless #1) by Danielle Vega

Book info:
The Merciless (The Merciless #1) by Danielle Vega | 282 pages | Published June 2015 by Razorbill | YA Horror, Thriller, Paranormal, Mystery

Summary:
Brooklyn Stevens sits in a pool of her own blood, tied up and gagged. No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream.

Sofia Flores knows she shouldn’t have gotten involved. When she befriended Riley, Grace, and Alexis on her first day at school, she admired them, with their perfect hair and their good-girl ways. They said they wanted to save Brooklyn. They wanted to help her. Sofia didn’t realize they believed Brooklyn was possessed.

Now, Riley and the girls are performing an exorcism on Brooklyn—but their idea of an exorcism is closer to torture than salvation. All Sofia wants is to get out of this house. But there is no way out. Sofia can’t go against the other girls...unless she wants to be next.

By the shockingly twisted end, readers will be faced with the most haunting question of all: Is there evil in all of us?

My thoughts:
Read October 5-10, 2016 | 2.5 stars (3 on GR)

*Minor spoilers*

RBD Review #11 | The Coldest Girl in Cold Town by Holly Black

Book info:
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black | 422 pages | Published 2013 | Teen, Fantasy, Paranormal, Vampires, Horror

Summary:
Coldtown was dangerous, Tana knew. A glamorous cage, a prison for the damned and anyone who wanted to party with them.
Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. And once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.
One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself (Goodreads).

My thoughts:
Read March 29-31, 2016 | 4.5 stars (5 on GR)

RBD Review #10 | After Alice by Gregory Maguire

Book info:
After Alice by Gregory Maguire | 256 pages | Published 2015 by Headline | Fantasy, Retelling, Historical Fiction, Fairy Tale

---This is the UK cover, which I found more appealing than the US one---

Summary:
When Alice fell down he rabbit hole, she found Wonderland as rife with inconsistent rules and abrasive egos as the world she left behind. But how did Victorian Oxford react to Alice’s disappearance?

Gregory Maguire turns his imagination to the question of underworlds, undergrounds, underpinnings - and understandings old and new, offering an inventive spin on Carroll’s enduring tale. Ada, a friend mentioned briefly in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, sets out to visit Alice but, arriving a moment too late, tumbles down the rabbit hole herself.

Ada brings to Wonderland her own imperfect apprehension of cause and effect as she embarks on an odyssey to find Alice and bring her safely home from this surreal world below the world. The White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat and the bloodthirsty Queen of Hearts interrupt their mad tea party to suggest a conundrum: if Eurydice can ever be returned to the arms of Orpheus, or if Lazarus can be raised from the tomb, perhaps Alice can be returned to life.

Either way, everything that happens next is After Alice (blurb on book).

My thoughts:

Read March 24-29, 2016 | 5 stars

RBD Review #9 | Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's #1) by Ransom Riggs

Book info:
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's #1) by Ransom Riggs | 352 pages | Published 2013 by Quirk Books | Teen, Paranormal, Fantasy (external image)

Summary:

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of curious photographs.

A horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography (courtsey of Goodreads).

My thoughts:

Read March 18-23, 2016 | 3 stars

*NEW* RDB Review #29 | A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle #1) by Libba Bray

Book info:
A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle #1) by Libba Bray | 403 pages | Published December 2003 by Simon and Schuster | Teen, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Romance, Magic, Supernatural, Paranormal, Mystery

Summary:
A Victorian boarding school story, a Gothic mansion mystery, a gossipy romp about a clique of girlfriends, and a dark other-worldly fantasy—jumble them all together and you have this complicated and unusual first novel.

Sixteen-year-old Gemma has had an unconventional upbringing in India, until the day she foresees her mother's death in a black, swirling vision that turns out to be true. Sent back to England, she is enrolled at Spence, a girls' academy with a mysterious burned-out East Wing. There Gemma is snubbed by powerful Felicity, beautiful Pippa, and even her own dumpy roommate Ann, until she blackmails herself and Ann into the treacherous clique. Gemma is distressed to find that she has been followed from India by Kartik, a beautiful young man who warns her to fight off the visions. Nevertheless, they continue, and one night she is led by a child-spirit to find a diary that reveals the secrets of a mystical Order. The clique soon finds a way to accompany Gemma to the other-world realms of her visions "for a bit of fun" and to taste the power they will never have as Victorian wives, but they discover that the delights of the realms are overwhelmed by a menace they cannot control. Gemma is left with the knowledge that her role as the link between worlds leaves her with a mission to seek out the "others" and rebuild the Order.

My thoughts:
Official re-read September 6-21, 2016 | 5 stars

RBD Review #8 | Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1) by Leigh Bardugo

Book info:
Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1) by Leigh Bardugo | 465 pages | Published 2015 by Henry Holt & Company | Teen fantasy (external image)

Summary:
Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone...
A convict with a thirst for revenge.
A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager.
A runaway with a privileged past.
A spy known as the Wraith.
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.
Kaz's crew are the only ones who might stand between the world and destruction—if they don't kill each other first (courtesy of Goodreads). 

My thoughts:
Read March 3-17, 2016 | 4 stars

Horror Read-a-Thon List | October 2016

So, for October, the booksandtea Discord group and I decided on a horror read-a-thon instead of a read-a-long like we usually do. For the longest time, I've been searching for the best and spoopiest horror novel I can find, so this was the perfect opportunity to find some new ones.
We ended up with more than 30 titles to choose from for the read-a-thon. Since there's so many and I recommended a lot of them, I thought I'd get started early because it's never too early for Halloween.

Also, here's a post Lauren made for our challenge.