Obsidian Review

Obsidian 

by Jennifer L Armentrout

SPOILERS

Summary: 

Starting over sucks.

When we moved to West Virginia right before my senior year, I'd pretty much resigned myself to thick accents, dodgy internet access, and a whole lot of boring... Until I spotted my hot neighbour, with his looming height and eerie green eyes. Things were looking up.

And then he opened his mouth.

Daemon is infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. We do not get along. At all. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, well, something... unexpected happens.

The hot alien living next door marks me.

You heard me. Alien. Turns out Daemon and his sister have a galaxy of enemies who want to steal their abilities, and Daemon's touch has lit me up like a Vegas strip. The only way I'm getting out of this alive is by sticking close to Daemon until my alien mojo fades.

If I don't kill him first that is.

My Thoughts:

I gave this book 5 stars. Obsidian was one of those books that I instantly fell in love with. I discovered it over on another blog, before I had my own, and instantly fell in love with the few quotes provided. Obsidian has a lot of sentimental value for me, the protagonist is the one that made me want to start a blog in the first place and this was actually the very first review I ever posted before I decided to rewrite it because my initial review sucked. 

This book was such an addicting read. It spoke to the teenage girl bookworm in me that wanted to read something spicy. YA version of spicy that is, it isn't too spicy. It's like Cholula spice, not ghost pepper spice. 

Katy has been one of my favorite characters for years, I felt like a could really relate to her as a character, she was an avid book reader, she was hilarious, she had a blog, she had a snarky attitude. She was sort of what I aspired to be at the time. Katy is a seemingly normal teen who is forced to move to the middle of nowhere West Virginia because her mother made her. I've always loved the premise of moving somewhere and starting over and being the new "mysterious" person that no one knows anything about. (Maybe I just don't want people to know anything about me, but I think I overshare too much for that to be the case.) Katy moves in next door to these twins, one who wants to be her best friend and the other one she has an incredible sexual tension with. If you're into that kind of thing I've probably already sold you on this book. Thanks for reading ;)

Daemon Black is a whole ass character. He is so funny and sexy and still is one of my favorite book boyfriends. However, the author did release Obsidian from his point of view, I think it was called Oblivion. You really don't need to read that one if you don't want to. You really don't learn anything new, it's just from Daemon's point of view. If you're into that then go for it. I'm just saying you could live without it if you don't want to read it. It doesn't actually contain important information. 

The plot of this book itself is fairly unique. I can't think of any other YA novels with aliens that take place on earth. I don't think I've read a book quite like it yet either. While the author generally maintains her writing style throughout all of her novels, it isn't in a bad way. And of her stories, I think that this series is definitely my favorite of them.

The cast of characters is just quirky and fun-loving enough to make this book/series lighthearted enough that even though the darker moments you still feel happy to be reading it. If you love YA romances and YA sci-fi I would highly recommend giving this book a look.

Quotes:

"Beautiful face. Beautiful body. Horrible attitude. It was the holy trinity of hot boys."

"My hand Itched to have a close encounter of the Bitch-slap kind with his face."

"Will you show me what you really look like? You don't sparkle, do you?"

"Daemon: I checked out your blog.

Katy: Stalking me again I see. Do I need to get a restraining order?

Daemon: In your dreams, Kitten. Oh wait I'm already starring in those, aren't I?

Katy: Nightmares, Daemon. Nightmares ."

Here Be Sexist Vampires Review

Here Be Sexist Vampires
by Suzanne Wright

Mild Spoilers
Synopsis:

Sam Parker is a vampire with a gift so strong and substantial that she is invited to partake in a test for a place in the Grand High Master Vampire’s private army. She finds that not only has the army never included a woman, but it has never included a Sventé vampire; a breed that is regarded by the super strong Pagori breed and the hypnotically beautiful Keja breed to be too tame and human-like. Most refuse to take her seriously, especially a Pagori commander named Jared who she craves in spite of herself.

The Grand High Master, however, sees her potential and offers her the position of Jared’s co-commander to help train the newest squad in time for the impending attack on his home. Sam has to demonstrate to Jared and the squad of chauvinists why it is incredibly foolish to underestimate a wilful, temperamental, borderline-homicidal Sventé female. 

Warning: This novel contains an iron-willed female vampire with an energy whip, a sexist male vampire who is determined to have her, explicit vampy sex, and a romance story with real bite.

My Thoughts:

I gave this book 4 stars. I surprisingly really enjoyed this one. 

I seem to have not gotten over the vampire craze of a few years ago. These days people have moved on to writing about fairies, aliens, witches, obscure mythologies that weren’t focused on before. While I love reading all those new books, I wish there were more vampire novels being released right now. I honestly couldn't even name a vampire novel that was published after 2014. Come on people I need my fix of vampire novels.

This book had a really cool concept. In this book's world, there are three types of vampires. In pop culture there seem to be three general ideas of what vampires are. One of them is the vampire that is super strong and super fast; the second being one that is ethereally beautiful and irresistible; the third being a vampire that seems almost human, but with just an extra kick of something supernatural. Before this book, I never actually thought about that before that gave this book an interesting twist compared to other vampire novels.

I really loved Sam. She has a cockney accent but I was able to overlook that because I didn’t actually need to hear it. (Side note: A little known fact about me, I probably haven’t even divulged this information on my blog before, but I hate cockney accents. They are just like nails on a chalkboard to me. If you have a cockney accent I sincerely apologize, it’s just an aversion I’ve never quite been able to get over.) Back to Sam, I thought she was such a badass leading lady. I feel like a lot of main female characters have been so similar lately and it’s really nice to get those few characters every once in a while that doesn’t care about public opinion. They are ready to defend themselves against those that want to harm and oppress them and I love it. I love really strong-willed sassy main characters that can take care of themselves and I honestly feel like we don't see enough of those in YA and NA novels. While I do enjoy the more bookish girls, is it too hard to get a decent mix of both?

As for Jared, I didn’t really care much about him. I would have loved him back when it was written, 2012, but it’s 2019 now and I have higher standards for the love interests in the books I read. I like substance and a bit more personality than a guy that has superpowers and can’t keep his dick in his pants. I legit don’t know if I actually know anything about Jared other than the most basic things, unlike Sam whom I feel like I genuinely know stuff about. She has a past. He doesn't. There are more books in the series so I assume they get more into that in future books, but I feel like it's important to establish some sort of background for a character if they are meant to be likable. I don't know anything about him other than I don't particularly care for his views. 

A bit of a warning, there are some things that I think if you are really sensitive to sexual assault situations you might not want to read this. We don't see anything graphic, nothing too disturbing, on the contrary, the book, for the most part, keeps a pretty light atmosphere. This warning is just if you are really sensitive to the subject matter, I would feel bad if I never mentioned it.  

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