Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy, the first book in a series of the same name, was excellent. After running away from school, Lissa, a Moroi princess, and her unofficial guardian/best friend, Rose, are caught and forced to return to St. Vladimir's Academy. There, the two girls must figure out who's after Lissa, all while trying to navigate a high school filled with vampires.
Juliette, a girl with a lethal touch, was locked up in an asylum for 264 days. She wants human contact but her lethal touch holds her back. Suddenly she gets a cellmate, Adam. She helps him adapt to life there, only to find out he is a soldier working for The Reestablishment. He isn’t completely loyal to The Reestablishment and against all odds is somehow immune to Juliette’s touch. Warner, the Chief Commander and Regent of Sector 45, intends to use Juliette as a weapon for The Reestablishment.
After months of scheming and fighting, Alosa has finally retrieved all three pieces of the treasure map from the leaders of the pirate families — Vordan, Jeskor, and Kalligan, her father. The assembled map shows a path to the Isla de Canta, where unspeakable treasures are guarded by sirens, waiting to be claimed. Alosa plans to work with her father in order to collect the treasure, but when she discovers a terrible secret that her father has been harboring for years, she begins to question everything she’s ever known.
Kaz Brekker is the worst of the worst in the Barrel, where all the thieves and thugs lie. His harrowing past has made him cruel beyond belief, and he’s known for being able to steal anything. When a prospering merchant offers him thirty million Kruge to hold the biggest heist of his life, he has no other option but to take it. Forming a team with a marksman who loves high risks, a treasonous convict barely surviving, a nationalistic witch with heartrending powers, a wealthy dealer’s son, and an assassin that survived the pleasure houses, Kaz sets his eyes on his biggest job yet.
To the people of Salann, the sea is everything. It is a cruel master, harsh and unforgiving, and it is both life and death. Annaleigh Thaumas has sent four of her eleven sisters back to the sea — and each went more horribly than the last. Now, there are whispers that the sisters are cursed, and loneliness has joined the heavy swaths of grief and mourning that encase the family like a black veil.
It’s a shame Maia wasn’t born as a boy. She has the makings of one of the best tailors in all of A’landi — she spins silk into the finest thread, weaves gossamer cloth that almost floats in its delicacy, and embroiders scenes that seem to dance with life — but as a girl, she is destined not for greatness as a tailor, but for marriage. However, when her elderly father is summoned to the palace to compete against eleven other tailors for the position of imperial tailor, Maia assumes the identity of her brother Keton and travels to the palace in her father’s stead.
The Thousandth Floor is a futuristic fantasy, set in Manhattan, New York in 2118. The world has evolved drastically, with mind-controlled objects and more. The first edition to this trilogy has me intrigued and I can't wait to read the next book. I love the way each chapter is told by a different character and how everyone is connected at the end. The plot is very well-thought and detailed. I recommend this book if you like suspense and are a fan of fantasy.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, written by J.K. Rowling, is the second book in the Harry Potter series. It’s a compelling book with diverse characters and I couldn’t put it down. Harry and his friends try to figure out who is trying to killing the kids at Hogwarts. When word gets out that Harry is Slytherin's heir, everything gets more complicated for him.
The fifth book in George R.R. Martin’s famous A Song of Ice and Fire series was just okay. This novel is essentially a repeat of the events from A Feast for Crows but from different characters’ perspectives. I was excited to revisit some of my favorite characters that I didn’t get to hear from in the last book, but they didn’t really add anything to the story. Daenerys had the most exciting scenes, in my opinion, but even she didn’t further the storyline; basically, in over 1,000 pages, nothing was accomplished.
Dragonslayer follows the story of three children and their experiences with dragons in the land of Pyrrhia. Wren was left by her village as a sacrifice for the dragons. She runs away and finds a lost dragon, and the two of them travel the world together. Leaf is distraught by her sister being eaten by dragons, and swears revenge against them. He sets out to become a dragonslayer and protect humans from what happened to his sister. Ivy thinks her father, Dragonslayer, is not trustworthy.
