Illuminate by Aimee Agresti

      Haven Terra is a brainy, shy high school outcast. But everything changes when she is awarded a prestigious internship at a posh Chicago hotel under the watchful eyes of a group of gorgeous strangers: the powerful and alluring hotel owner Aurelia Brown; her second-in-command, the dashing Lucian Grove; and their stunning but aloof staff of glamazons called The Outfit.


      As Haven begins falling for Lucian, she discovers that these beautiful people are not quite what they seem. With the help of a mysterious book, she uncovers the evil agenda of Aurelia and company: they’re in the business of buying souls. Will they succeed in wooing Haven to join them in their recruitment efforts, or will she be able to thwart this devilish set’s plans to take the souls of her classmates on prom night at the hotel?

      Basically I picked this book up because it was in the YA section and it was published by the house that I'm looking to get an internship with. Don't get me wrong, it's totally my kind of thing in terms of genre and stuff like that, but it did seem a little "tame" for what I'm used to. 

     You can definitely tell that this is a new/debut novel. It wasn't bad by any stretch, but there were definitely parts that could have used a good editing. There was a lot of the "we went here, and then we did this, and then we went there" kind of thing, and while the reader definitely became accustomed to the sense of "routine" that these characters were going through, it was harder, later on, to get the sense of shock when something totally busted up that routine and they learned something crazy! Like, i don't know, that they're boss is the freaking DEVIL.

     It just seemed like Haven was a little too...cool about everything. I didn't feel her freaking out about the whole "my co-workers are literally demons from hell" thing, and she took the information about her being an "angel candidate" very well. I thought it was also a little strange that, for someone who wanted to get this angel person on her team, Aurelia didn't really try very hard to give Haven the whole "life can literally be everything you've ever dreamed" treatment. Especially for someone who didn't trust her, I would have thought she'd try to have her literally like glued to her side to make sure she's not off doing her own thing and figuring things out.

Things I Liked:

1. I liked the character of Dante, even though he sort of goes AWOL for a majority of the book. He seems the most emotionally and personality charged character in the whole piece.

2. Lucian. I liked the idea of him, but that's kind of all we get for him -an image and an idea. The main character doesn't spend enough time with him to get to know what's actually going on in his head, though.

3. The Lexington. I wish we could have explored it a bit more, because I LOVED the bits of history thrown in, as well as all of the cool passage ways and secrets that it seemed to have. 

Things I Didn't Like:

1. The Prince and his noticeable absence. I feel like when both Aurelia and Lucian were failing in getting Haven on their side, Satan totally should have stepped up and tried to, like, charm her or something.

2. The Outfit. I wished they'd been more nasty to Haven or something. They needed personalities, otherwise it was just really super boring whenever they were in the scene. I liked when Haven tried talking to Raphaella and Calliope in the beginning though, because that at least let me know that they could actually speak.

Overall Impression:

      This was a good first novel. It definitely could have been edited a bit more (it totally didn't need to be 500 pages), but it was a really cool idea and I think it has some good potential for a series. I just want more Dante...and Lucian. I'm really glad he's coming back in the next book. You totally saw Havance coming a mile away, but I kinda want to know more about Lucian. (Not that there's anything wrong with Lance, it was just too obvious).

The Blonde's Rating: 3 of 5
Amazon's Rating: 3.5 of 5
Goodreads Rating: 3.7 of 5

Thanks for reading!
The Blonde

Don't forget to check out the second book in the series, Infatuate, out now.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

     In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

     During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

     I've been hearing a lot about this book in the YA-reader circles and there are lots of reviews raving about it, so I decided I wanted check out what all the buzz was about. And needless to say, I had HIGH expectations for this book because of all of the hype surrounding the book and the upcoming film adaption.

     And guess what...it lived up to my expectations.

     I will admit, it started out sort of slow, and I sort of had to force myself to keep reading for the first couple of chapters, but sometime around when Tris changes her name and moves to the Dauntless camp, I found it difficult to put the book down. Before I realized it, I was engrossed in this story, and the writing was incredibly well done and the story steadily became more dramatic, exciting, and enticing. It's easy to see (after finishing the book) why so many people are excited for the final installment, to be released in October.

Things That I Liked:

1. I really liked Four. He has the greatest personality, and I love his veiled interest in Tris, although there was a point, like, two pages after meeting him where I said to myself "he's that kid that was abused by the Abnegation leader."

2. The action; the story was narrated in Tris's head, but because she is an action-oriented character, there isn't a lot of long thought-passages of her trying to make a decision or thinking about her situation.

3. The fear landscape/simulations were a really cool idea, and I totally didn't see the use of them coming up in the end-scheme of the big turning point in the book. I thought it was a really interesting use of the simulation and it really makes the reader think about morality and the owner of the responsibility of people's actions.

4. Tris's struggle with "becoming" Dauntless but being unable to be completely Abnegation. It felt real and relatable, and I really admired how she handled her issues.

Things That I Didn't Like:

1. Peter is a b*tch. But he is a good villain, I guess.

2. Eric. I know nothing about him except that I was supposed to hate him and indeed I did.

3. Is there, like, a history, or some kind of origin story for how the factions came to be? Like, it's obvious this supposed to be a dystopian version of Chicago, but how did Chicago as we know it now get to the point it is in during Divergent? What's going on in the rest of the world?

4. It would be really cool to know what exactly it means to be Divergent, because from what I can tell, it just means that you are indecisive and can actually think for yourself.

Overall Impression:

     This was a really interesting novel, and I'm really excited to see where things go from the end of the first book. It's clear that the next two books are going to be very different from the first one, so it will be interesting to see if the style can stay the same.

The Blonde's Rating: 4/5

Amazon Rating: 4.6/5

Goodreads Rating: 4.3/5

To read the review for Insurgent, click here.

Thanks,

The Blonde

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

      Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

      Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance—and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

     As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole’s queen.

     I picked up this book, expecting it to be a one-hit wonder similar to Meg Cabot's Abandon series, where a girl has infatuated the keeper to the Land of the Dead, but I was pleasantly surprised! This was a really unique story with an original plot and a shocking ending, leaving me very excited for the sequel.

     Things That I Liked:

     1. The cover -it is gorgeous, and I can't get over just how pretty it is.

     2. The main character, Nikki, is strong, courageous, and self-sacrificing, prepared to spend the last of her short time back at home helping her family and bringing relief to others rather than satisfying herself. 

     3. The mystery: yes there is the mystery of Cole and the other Everlings and how they live, but I think the readers were only given a small taste of the bigger mystery in this story, which is that of the Everneath's queen and the ruling class, and their existence. 

     4. The timeline: the majority of the story was in a conventional timeline, but whenever the story reached a point where Nikki remembered something significant from her past, the text would go back to that moment, with each chapter/break subtitled with the time and location, to minimize confusion to the readers.

     Things That I Didn't Like:

     1. I was unclear about the location of "Park City" where the story takes place. Normally this wouldn't make much of a difference for me, but there were a few mentions about being a town known for American Indian tourism/memorabilia which made me wonder about where this was taking place, as well as the local river rapids and mountains that seemed easy to drive to. But overall, not a big deal, in fact, a very small one.

     2. Cole's motivation: I didn't like that he wouldn't explain anything about how he and Nikki would "make a run for the Everneath throne." Obviously the queen is very powerful and knows a lot of information about her Everlings, so how would these two be able to not only keep Nikki's existence a secret, but then fight her for her ruling status? 

     Overall Impression:

     This was a really interesting story, and I really liked the voice in which it was written. The prose was well-written, and there were few holes left by the end of the book. The ending was shocking, and left for a satisfying cliffhanger to have you scrambling for the sequel.

Blonde Rating: 4/5

Amazon Rating: 4.2/5

Goodreads Rating: 3.8/5

Stay tuned for my review of Everbound, the sequel to Everneath; there will NOT be a review for Neverfall, the digital novella companion to Everneath.

Thanks for reading,

The Blonde

Phoenix by Elizabeth Richards (Black City)

Phoenix: A Black City Novel, by Elizabeth Richards

      Weeks after his crucifixion and rebirth as Phoenix, Ash Fisher believes his troubles are far behind him. He and Natalie are engaged and life seems good. But his happiness is short-lived when he receives a threatening visit from Purian Rose, who gives Ash an ultimatum: vote in favor of Rose’s Law permanently relegating Darklings to the wrong side of the wall or Natalie will be killed.

      The decision seems obvious to Ash; he must save Natalie. But when Ash learns about The Tenth, a new and deadly concentration camp where the Darklings would be sent, the choice doesn’t seem so simple. Unable to ignore his conscience, Ash votes against Rose’s Law, signing Natalie’s death warrant and putting a troubled nation back into the throes of bloody battle. 

      I loved the first installment in this series for a lot of different reasons. I liked the relatable characters, the interesting mix of politics, racism/species-ism, supernatural happenings, and forbidden love, and the always exciting twists and turns the story was making.

     Not that Phoenix didn't have all of that, but it wasn't "up there" with the first book, not by a long shot. 

     It starts off really exciting, with everyone wondering whether or not the vote for Rose's Law (which we find out later will totally screw over all the Darklings by sending them to a worse concentration camp than when they were warring). Then the anty gets upped when Purian Rose himself threatens to hurt Natalie, who is newly engaged to our hero, Ash Fisher, half-Darkling and rebellion symbol/leader, Black Phoenix, if he doesn't vote to support Rose's Law, which obvi he can't do! Then there's a crazy turn, and basically Ash, Natalie, and all of their friends need to get their butts out of Black City, and quick.

     For some reason the Bastet (half-cat humanoid with a deadly-to-Darkling venom) boy that Natalie saved from experimentation in Black City is thrown into the mix. His name is Elijah, and there's some weird crap about a weapon that his missing mother supposedly has that can totally turn the rebellion around and send the government running scared. This sounds very convenient, except for the fact that Elijah's mother has gone missing, along with her good friend Lucinda, who just happens to be Ash's aunt.

   

     There's more about this second installment that annoyed/frustrated me than there was that was super exciting and entertaining (so basically the exact opposite of Black City):

    1. Basically, once Ash, Natalie, and Elijah left Black City, the book took a long and unnecessary amount of time and pages to get back to something relatively important and interesting. A majority of the "drama" in this book, which was boring relationship bullshit, could have been completely avoided if Natalie had been smart.

    2. If you read Black City, you know that at the end of the book, there's this crazy fight going on and Natalie gets bitten by some little shit Darkling brat from the ghetto...where all the diseased, Wrath-ridden Darklings live. Now, if you've ever read any sort of thriller/mystery book before, you know that nothing like that ever gets written into a book unless it's going to come back to bite the characters in the butt later on. So it was no surprise to anyone who's ever read a book over a 3rd grade reading level that Natalie was going to contract Wrath. 

     Now some of you may be like "oh, but she's a human, and humans don't succumb to Wrath, their just carriers, it's no big deal!", well no, because it is a big deal. Because, as we learned in the last book, Natalie has a half-Darkling's heart in her chest, so she's got Darkling particles in her body, making her susceptible to Darkling diseases. 

     So all of the drama in the middle of this book comes from Natalie being too scared to tell Ash that she has Wrath, thinking he'll break up with her because of it. By keeping this secret, Ash thinks that she's got something going on with Elijah, bringing about the classic, love-triangle-drama that YA authors like to pull out when they've got a happy couple and a sequel novel to get through.

      So that's two things, the avoidable drama and being predictable.

     3. The time period/fashion/era of this world is still not explained. Once in a while the fashions will be mentioned and it just doesn't seem to make sense, because it's all, like, Victorian steampunk corsets and sportcoat vests, while there's all this crazy technology like tablet/digipads for TV/info, Transporter and Destroyer Ships that seem like high-tech hover vehicle prisions, and yet there are no cars, or cell phones, but there are telephones. It's just very confusing, and I'd really appreciate some sort of "guide to the times."

     4. Just like the last time there was a romantic rival for Ash and Natalie, Giselle is completely pointless.

     Please don't get me wrong; while I was disappointed in this book after the powerhouse of a novel Black City was, it was still really well-written, interesting and exciting, and the first and the third parts were really action-packed and full of constant turns and struggles. Even the second part was pretty cool because we finally got a glimpse of the Barren Lands we heard about from the Darkling wars, and the characters spent some time in the concentration camp where the Wrath was created which was super cool.

     And then the book ends by giving the reader weird situation after weird situation, wondering what the F**K is happening and wondering if these we will ever know what is going on because the impossible is happening right now, and characters are throwing themselves into dangerous situations when they don't have to.

Overall Impression:

      I got the impression that there is definitely a great story hiding out under all the the stuff that this book built on top of it. I definitely look at this book as a bridge to get from the awesomeness of book one to what i can hope will be a heart-stopping amazingness of book three. Unfortunately that means a less than perfect book two, but you know what, it's a pretty decent bridge if book three delivers like I have faith it will. 

Blonde's Rating: 4/5

Amazon's Rating: 4.3/5

Goodreads Rating: 4.2/5

Thanks for reading,

The Blonde

Season Review: Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time
Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Joshua Dallas, Lana Parilla, Robert Carlyle, Emilie De Ravin

Season Two Review

    My advice for those of you who have not seen this show yet: go back and watch season one. Then STOP.

Summary for Episode 201:
The curse is broken and the people of Storybrooke, Maine, remember their past. Emma is reunited with her parents. However, just as celebrations get into swing, Mr. Gold has another dark ploy up his sleeve. Plus, Regina's past actions appear to have consequences.

    Like many Oncers, I was very excited for this show to return last September. I was with it from the very first episode, and I've convinced many people, my mother and best friend included, to become just as obsessed with this show as I am. Once Upon a Time's first season was filled with great writing, a interesting and unique plot, some great re-imaginings of some old fairy tales.

     Also like many fans, I was very interested to see what the producers would do with the show since the first finale brought about the end of the Curse keeping the Storybrooke residents in the dark about their true identities. 

     What I got this season started out decently well, what with Emma and Snow/Mary-Margaret (who shall hereby be referred to as Snow) forced into some serious daughter-mother bonding time as they are plunged into the tattered remains of the Enchanted Forest, plagued by ogres and other not so niceys since Regina's big-bad Curse took out a good chunk of it. Snow was back in the business of being Disney's bad-ass princess/queen, being a killer shot with the bow and arrow, knowing how to live off the land, and all that. And there was a really interesting storying going on between two/three new characters and a new kind of evil monster.

     Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Phillip, and Mulan had a really interesting relationship going on, and something tells me there was definitely more going on between Mulan and Phillip while they were searching for Aurora's "tomb" for 28 years. Then Phillip is kinda-killed by this weird shadowy soul-taker-sucker thingie that has a Chinese-sounding name but GREATLY resembles a Harry Potter-esque Dementor, and Aurora and Mulan are stuck working together to find a way to get back his lost soul. 


     THEN they meet up with Snow and Emma and they kinda help each other out but it's more Mulan and Aurora helping Snow and Emma get back to the real world before Regina's even more evil mother, Cora and Rumplestiltskin's (Gold) ultimate enemy, Captain Hook. 

     Hook and Gold's relationship was actually really well done, and has an interesting dynamic between the two, although "killing" each other and realizing later that they'd failed miserably does get a little old after a while. 

     Does that sound like a lot to take in? Yeah, it was for me, too. Not to mention that all of this is happening while a whole bunch of other crap is going on in Storybrooke, like how some people do and don't have magic, and how suddenly there's a mine of magic in town, and having to deal with everyone's fairy tale character traits mixing and mingling in with their own "real world" personalities and junk like that. Prince Charming (hereby known as David) turns into the "police chief" in town (since, you know, his daughter the real police is stuck in a magical world with no woodsy survival skills whatsoever), and he's in charge of keeping everyone's characters straight and making sure everyone is in and accounted for in Storybrooke, so everyone can find their friends, I think, but we didn't get a whole lot of looking at that aspect of it.

     Regina became a pariah in town due to her magic being returned, which nobody liked, even though after sending Snow and Emma to the Enchanted Forest, she tries to be a good person and not use her magic because she wants Henry to love her. She has some pretty cool episodes in this first half of the season. We learn more about her relationship with her evil mother, and then we get some more of her relationship to Snow and Gold, as well as her past love, the one that was killed by Cora. If you didn't appreciate Regina and her struggle in the first season, then you definitely grow to love her in this season. She really tries to prove herself to Henry and the other fairy tale people in town.

     So Snow and Emma and Mulan and Aurora and Cora and Hook are in what's left of the Enchanted Forest, trying to find a way to get back to Storybrooke. The method appears kind of complicated, requiring a magical bean that doesn't exist, and a dried-up lake of new life and some kind of crazy awesome magical circumstances. Obviously there's a huge struggle, and the bad guys almost win, but then, miraculously, Emma realizes that she's got some cool magic inside her and Emma and Snow escape back into Storybrooke, met by Regina, Henry and Gold.

      That's the end, right? HA, that's only nine episodes. We've still got another half to go. To give us something to watch, somehow Cora and Hook are able to sneak Hook's whole freaking Jolly Roger into the Storybrooke harbor with a new portal that was able to be summoned up in, like, a 90-second flashback scene. Why isn't everything that easy the first time?

     Then, you'd think, since we've just spent nine episodes falling in love with the strange relationship between Mulan and Aurora, we would get follow-up stories with them in the Enchanted Forest, following what Mulan suggested was a way to find Phillip's soul. I also think it would have been really cool to see Mulan's story and how she and Phillip teamed up together, not to mention how Aurora was put under her sleeping spell.

      But we never got to know what was up with that, did we, Producers? Nope. Nine episodes into this season, they're storyline is completely dropped.

     They're not the only ones, either. There were some cool things happening with Ruby, and a giant named Tiny, and we can't forget that no one can cross the Storybrooke town border that was born in the Enchanted Forest. If they do, they completely forget everything, who they were, who they know, and who they were under the Curse. They become a blank slate and everyone worries over them...for like two seconds and then we completely forget about them, unless your Mr. Gold and it's Belle that's lost her memory, because GODDAMMIT WHY??? THEY ARE PERFECT and oh wait, he's gotta leave town because he thinks he's found out where his lost son, Baelfire is hiding out.

      Hold on, back up. After Emma and Snow come back, Emma tries being nice and including Regina in a bunch of town-ish things, because she raised Henry and all that jazz. But Cora is a mean mean person and does some bad shit around town disguised as Regina to get the town to hate her again. Mother of the Year, right?

      So Gold (with the help of some magic potion he was able to concoct that allows him to pass the town border and keep his memory) and Emma (and Henry, because no one trusts Regina around him) run off to New York, where supposedly Gold's long-lost son is living. (If you don't remember Baelfire, he hated what the power of The Dark One did to change his father's personality and got a magic bean from a fairy to take them to a world where there was no magic so they could live happily together again. Gold proved to be too much of a coward to let the magic and power go, and accidentally let Baelfire slip into The Real World. Ever since that moment, every thing Gold has ever done, said, and schemed, in The Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke, has been to find and get back to his son).

     Where they think they'll find Baelfire, they find Emma's ex-boyfriend, Neal. He's made brief appearances before this, having received a Storybrooke postcard in the opening of episode one and a nice little flashback episode of his and Emma's crookery relationship before Emma was arrested and knocked up with Henry.

       Then we find out that Hook won't freaking die, even after being shot -by a gun! He turns up in New York (don't know how he remembers what he's doing, since he's OUT OF STORYBROOKE) and stabs Gold.

   

   Back in town, there's a stranger, and no one knows who he is, what he's doing in Storybrooke, or if he saw some magic fighting Gold and Hook and Belle were doing when he crashed his station wagon. There's a dumb little flashback episode about when the Curse first took place and how outsiders used to be allowed into town, and then we're like OMG IT'S THE SAME LITTLE KID FROM, LIKE 30 YEARS AGO. WHAT THE HECK IS HE DOING HERE? And I don't know about anyone else, but I was hoping for some kind of huge new-media drama, with camera crews coming all up in the town's business, checking out the new magic bean crops, and sniffing around Regina's poison apples. No, instead they do something really dumb with it.

      First, though, let's talk about the one other GREAT episode in this season besides The Crocodile. The Miller's Daughter was FANTASTIC, and it is the story of how Cora came to be how she is. It is fantastic, and it's pretty upsetting how it ends, not because it was badly written, but because you're so briefly happy for Cora and Regina and even a little bit for Gold, and then all your hopes and dreams are dashed with a bit of Snow being really frickin' annoying.

       Anyway, the last good villain in this show dies, and then we need some new villains, so lets go back to the outsider, who i can only remember as Owen, even though that's not his name anymore, and then we bring in Neal's useless fiance, Tamara (Tam-AAAARRRR-a). First of all, she's just got a look about her that says "you know i'm up to no good," and he's a creepy old dude, and together they make the dumbest evil duo trying to "rid the world of magic" -also, they are an ugly couple. She is so pretty, she can do SO much better than that guy.

       They're storyline and "plot" is really dumb, and they think kidnapping Regina will make people freak out and that she'll tell them how to get rid of the magic in town and get rid of their whole Enchanted Forest world or something stupid like that. I don't know, I tended to tune them out when they were on screen.

       So yeah, they do some stupid stuff, and while everyone in town is getting SUPER DUPER excited to use the magic beans to go back to the Enchanted Forest, Team Stupid steals all the beans that Regina steals from the town and then they kidnap Henry and, in the name of some nameless government organization bent on destroying magic, head to another world with the last magic bean. Why this seemed like a good plan, i don't know, because they ended up in Neverland, where there is a giant Shadow playing the part of Peter Pan that is kidnapping little boys. WHY WOULD YOU BRING A LITTLE BOY TO NEVERLAND, YOU DUMBASSES??

       There are obviously some other things going on during the season, and they can be summed up in bullet points:

• Snow White being really annoying and virtuous and "omgoodness we have to help and make all the world wonderful and beautiful and I love my family and thank goodness we're all back together again!"
• Charming/David is useless. Literally. He takes over as police chief while Emma is in the Enchanted Forest, and literally everything that could go wrong does and he's almost never the one to fix things. The one time he does is because he talks to Ruby in her wolf form and calms her down. 
• Cora and Hook's weird little relationship.
• Everyone, literally EVERYONE trying to find Gold's Dark One Dagger to kill him.
• Aurora's, Henry's and Snow's crazy freakish trapped fire dream that they all get from being under a sleeping curse -that was kinda cool.
• Regina being stupid and spiteful after someone dies and changes Belle into a really annoying piece of Rumbelle fanfiction
• The Rumbelle fanfiction episode, Lacey.
• The huge freakin' deal the media team made about "the new hero, Robin Hood," who was barely in 10 minutes of his own episode.
• What happened to Emma's magic? Why did we forget that existed?
• Snow killed someone, intentionally, and darkened her own heart. Why wasn't that explored?
• The townspeople want to go back home and Snow is uncomfortable with that.
• Ruby disappears :,(
• The producers forgetting their own rules for their universes. Watch this season a second time if you can bare it and play the "point out the inconsistencies" drinking game. you'll be dead by episode three, I promise.
• Henry alternately being brilliant, a human prop, a brat, or just kind of not there.

      So there you have it, Season Two of Once Upon a Time in a very opinionated nutshell. 

      Although I was highly disappointed with it, I'm told by my less critical peers that I'm being too harsh. 

      I tell my less critical peers that I deserve some glimmer of quality television with all the bullsh*t that's on today, and Once used to be that last season. They spoiled me with good writing and quality dramedy last year, and then they expect me to eat the slop they tossed on my TV screen this year? HELL NO.

      Sorry I'm not sorry, but a Blonde never lies and she'll never let a show/book/movie off easy.

      
Blonde's Rating: 1.5/5
IMDB.com's Rating: 7.7/10 (3.8/5)
Amazon Instant Play Rating: 4.7/5

That's all for now. If I find any news about Season 3, or the upcoming "Once Upon a Time in Wonderland" thing, I'll post it on my Shows Page.

Thanks,
The Blonde

Golden by Jessi Kirby

      Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.

     Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

     Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.

     It's been a long time since I could honestly say I've read a satisfying book, and I am delighted to say that  Golden has broken my streak of unfulfilling reads. It's been a while since I've read a purely "chick-lit" book (I think it was Sarah Dessen's Along for the Ride) and this was a great leap back into the genre.

    Parker Frost was definitely a character I could relate to in terms of her small-town home, her relationship with her mother and her best friend, and her love and desire for the romantic, dreamy way of life to play out in reality. I felt that Parker was relatable in the way her thoughts work and her decision-making process. 

Things That I Liked:

     I really appreciated how the story remained focused on Parker's relationship with Julianna's journal, and the story of her relationships with her friend Kat and her crush Trevor were always back-burner plots.

     I thought that it was really interesting how Parker's vision of Julianna's "local legend" status changed for Parker as she read the journal. I wasn't expecting the revelation in Julianna's journal, and I definitely wasn't expecting Parker to be able to actually solve a mystery no one in her town knew needed solving. 

     I liked that the expected conclusion for the Julianna-plot came, but in a way I wasn't anticipating, and I definitely didn't see Parker's personal "conclusion" coming as it did. 

Things That I Didn't Like:

     I think my one complaint for this story is the lack of view on Shane, Julianna's boyfriend, but ultimately this book was focused on Julianna, her journal, and what she wrote in it. There wasn't much involvement of Shane and his thoughts and feelings because they both weren't sharing the journal and Julianna can't read minds.

Overall Impression:

    A great, easy, and entertaining read from a new-to-me author. I had very few issues with this novel, and I highly recommend it for a summer read!

Blonde Rating: 4.5/5

Amazon Rating: 4.4/5 

Goodreads Rating: 4.2/5

I hope you'll pick up a copy of this book and enjoy it as much as I did,

Thanks!

The Blonde

Icons by Margaret Stohl

Your heart beats only with their permission.

Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting.

Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside -- safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid.

She's different. She survived. Why?

When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy.

Within the Icon's reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions -- which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses -- may actually be their greatest strengths.

     It sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?
     It doesn't sound like it would be very confusing, or repetitive, or like it would leave you with more questions than answers, does it?

     Well, it does. I'm not saying it wasn't worth the read, but it was confusing, and, after reading the book twice, I'm still not sure what the four main characters "are" in terms of their weird powers and their strange inner connection to each other.
     I did, however, enjoy the interesting aspect of these "Big Brother" alien invaders and how the whole society changed around their invasion and their loyal followers. I thought the dynamics between the main characters was unique, but I was confused by some of their motivations and morals.

Things I Liked:

     I think my favorite character was definitely the computer, which goes by a myriad of different science-fiction inspired names. "He" was quirky and had more personality than the evil villain Ambassador that we meet once and her right-hand-man Colonel Catallus possessed. 

    I liked the glimpses readers got of Tima's background. We didn't have a whole lot of character development from any of the four main characters, but the bits we got into Tima's past helped show readers that she has the potential to be a deep and complex character. Same with Lucas's inability to side with the other three, or his mother and her oppressive army.

    I was really interested in the brief bit of mystery that was peppered into the ending about the origin of how the aliens came to be drawn to earth.

Things I Didn't Like:

    Dol needs to let go of the freakin' pig. We barely met the people she shared her whole life with (the Padre, Bigger, Biggest, and Ramona Jamona the pig) yet all she talks and thinks about is this pig. Maybe it's just supposed to be another symbol for a scene later, but it got annoying after a while. All the readers ever really knew about this pig is that she had soft ears and she pooped in the Church the day Dol was taken away. Either Stohl needed to expand on the relationships between Dol and these characters, or she needed to cut the pig out.

    I wanted to understand why the Ambassador was bothering to educate Tima, Ro, and Dol, if they were just tools to begin with. Obviously she wants to treat her son with the best she can give, but I don't understand why she felt that the others were just as special, or why anyone thought it would be a good idea to have them interact with each other so freely.

    What is Fortis's deal????

Overall Impression:

    It was an interesting start to a new series, and I'm definitely interested in reading on to see if the four can shut down all 13 icons, and if Ro will actually act out on Lucas as all signs point to him doing eventually. I'm also interested to see the new "twist" of what these four children are and what they were made to do.

    I was a bit confused through a lot of this book, but the read is non-stop and it ends on a can't-put-it-down kind of note.

Blonde Rating: 2.5/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.7/5
Amazon Rating: 4/5

Thanks for reading,
The Blonde