Getting your annual flu shots, you know you’ll most likely wake up the next day with some flu-like symptoms like a fever and a stuffy nose, but never would you assume you’d get telepathic powers…

These New York high school students definitely never thought they would!

They never thought they would be able to overhear their parents having sex in the room next door or that their school nurse had a career in stripping! While the idea of hearing everyone’s thoughts sounds cool, it isn’t as awesome as comics and movies make it seem. When they can hear everyone’s thoughts, they mean EVERY SINGLE PERSON!

The teenagers learn a lot about their classmates, their teachers, their families, and each other. They can’t keep seem to keep any secrets—not that Mackenzie’s cheating on her boyfriend, not that Olivia has a new jerk boyfriend, and not that Tess is crushing on her best friend.

Unsure of what to do with their newly discovered powers, these average teenagers have no idea if they should tell someone and, if so, who? If they did tell, what would they do to them? Would they run crazy tests on them?

But who wouldn’t want to be telepathic? You can easily cheat on tests, know what that cute guy on your date is thinking, and know when someone is gossiping about you!

When the temporary nurse at school starts acting suspiciously and starting to ask questions about the telepathic teenagers, the groups of friends don’t know what to do. Some just want this horrible nightmare to end, and others are afraid of what might happen to them. It’s a tough decision to make, and a decision that will affect the rest of their lives. 

Don’t Even Think About It was a light read when it comes to super powers. The story revolves around NORMAL teenagers, who don’t intend to save or destroy the world with their newly-discovered abilities. Instead, they are much more focused on themselves, their secrets, and the secrets of their peers.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story, I liked the characters, and I liked that it was light-hearted and not dark. But I do have to admit two things—there were a large number of characters and the nurse caught on to them very easily.

At the beginning of the book I was struggling to keep up with who was who, and what everyone was doing. The different perspectives weren’t divided by chapters and they would randomly change between characters.

When the nurse first shows up at the school, she’s on the mission to find this group of teenage students with telepathic patterns. But after only confronting the students twice, they basically spit it out without hesitation. I guess I was hoping the group would avoid her longer and that she would have to REALLY try and get them to admit it instead of just blurting it.

I LOVED Ten Things We Did And Probably Shouldn’t Have, and I loved this one from Sarah Mlynowski as well! Can’t wait to pick up her future books!

In Belladonna we’re heading away from the lustre of Venice and the elusive and anonymous happenings at glamorous masquerade parties of the top echelon of Venetian society. Cassandra is in a life or death struggle to find out who and why her fiancé Luca was arrested for heresy. To clear his name, she travels to Florence in search for the Book of the Eternal Rose.

As with the Fiona’s first book, Venom, nobody can be trusted and all are suspected of hindering Cass’ progress. Falco is still driving me crazy as a character. I don’t know where he stands and what his motives are, and it makes my blood boil.

The use of Florence as a backdrop takes me back to my art theory days in high school and grabs me in a way I wasn’t expecting. I love the opulence of high society and the lavish way a good proportion of the characters live.

Medical science was still in its infancy in these historical mysteries, and if you have a weak stomach, beware; do not snack while reading these books. There are entries from The Book of Eternal Rose at the commencement of each chapter and the clinical nature of them certainly adds to the mood and the relevancy of Cass’ plight.

If you’re in the mood for something a little different, a little posh, and a little gory, go find Fiona’s Secrets of the Eternal Rose series.

Belladonna was released in the middle of last year, so I feel like I’m playing catch up on this series. I saw book 3, Starling, on the shelves this week and I’m very, very, tempted to spend the 14 dollars to find out what happens to Cassandra, and what the hell Falco is playing at.

http://fionapaulbooks.blogspot.com.au/

Paperback, 352 pages

Published July 1st 2013 by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia

ISBN 0732295939 (ISBN13: 9780732295936)

When emotions are erased from the world, creating a civilization of mindless drones, only those with fury can survive.

On the same day each year Josephine Luquet wakes naked, shivering and covered in blood that is not her own. Under the cold gaze of the blood moon she is someone else entirely, but when dawn breaks her memories flee and she is left with only an icy horror, a burning fury. Amid a sea of drones, she alone hasn’t been cured.
It will be the same each year: atrocities forgotten, truths hidden and pieces of herself left to die.

Until Luke.

He isn’t like the other drones. With secrets whispering behind his eyes and a hunger for all things Josephine, he is the only one determined to help her discover the truth before the next blood moon rises.
But time is running out. Is Luke willing to risk his life to be near her? Does he truly understand what violence she is capable of?

Raw and full of passion, Fury is a story of love in a dystopian world, and how much we are willing to forgive in the struggle to remember our humanity.

Kindle Edition, 1st, 348 pages

Published March 25th 2014 by Momentum Books, Pan Macmillan

Fury is a story about Josephine trying to come to terms with the fact that she is unlike anybody else. Stories of her past and present day interweave and we meet the people who try to help her, and those who try to destroy her.  We also get bits of information about how the world has changed and what caused people’s emotions to be erased.

The fact that the novel is told from three different perspectives means that we get to see different sides of Josephine and how she deals with what happens to her every year. My favorite parts of the story were from Anthony’s–her therapist’s– perspective.  Through Anthony, I was able to get more of an idea of the world outside Luke and Josephine’s relationship. His perspective gave me a better understanding to how the “emotions” play out in this world. Though people can feel no anger, there sure were a lot of really mean, abusive people in Josephine’s life.

I felt that the book was a mesh of two different stories. The dystopia (where people are mindless drones) was a fully-conceived separate idea from that of the Fury and its yearly release within Josephine. The combination of the two ideas was interesting, but I found myself a little perplexed with Josephine and how she viewed her world.

What I loved about the story was when the Fury was released within Josephine. It was scary, dark, and gory. I was gripped by suspense, waiting for the next time it would happen and to see how far it would go. It was never disappointing.

I recommend the book to those who enjoy dystopian horror stories. There was some romance as well, and Luke was a fun love interest with secrets of his own. Overall, it’s a pretty fast paced novel that delves deep into Josephine’s past and emotional well-being. 

If you haven’t started reading a Kiersten White book, you should! They are absolutely AHH-mazing reads! Recently I’ve been on a reading high that completely revolves around Kiersten White’s books. Her characters are fantastic and their development through her stories is incredible.

I’m addicted to her writing and the characters she creates. I’ll admit it.

When it comes to Mind Games, it’s exactly the same. The story follows two sisters named Annie and Fia. Annie is two years older, blind, and has the ability to see visions of the future; she still blames herself for not seeing her parents’ car crash and warning them earlier. Fia has perfect instincts and can see someone’s intentions before she even knows the person.

When their parents passed away, Annie was invited to attend a “special school” for girls with similar abilities to hers. No matter how unsure and uncomfortable Fia feels about this offer, Annie thinks it’s an amazing opportunity and doesn’t want to it give up.

After years of attending this “special school”, the two sisters quickly learn that it’s everything but. The school takes advantage of the girls and uses them for corporate espionage. Without any obvious powers, Fia is used for completely different work; she’s become the hands of the school, doing any and all of their dirty work.

If Fia refuses to do any of the jobs she’s given, Keane—the owner of the school—threatens to hurt Annie. While Annie is locked on a single floor in the school building without any idea of what her sister is doing, Fia is forced to eliminate a guy named Adam. She isn’t allowed to know why. She never is. She only has to get the job done.

When Fia can’t bring herself to murder Adam, she confesses everything to him and lets him go. She knows what she’s done and what’s at stake.

Fia’s tired of doing all the dirty work and she wants to escape with Annie. Even if it means having to lie, fake Adam’s death, and murder her own sister…

Let’s start with my favorite part: the characters.

As you already know, I LOVE Kiersten White’s characters, and Annie and Fia were two perfect examples. Annie was the older sister and was much more calm and collected. Fia, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. She was the younger sister, but felt like she was the protector of Annie, and was willing to do anything Keane asked of her to keep Annie safe. Fia did as she was asked, but she also had this IDGAF attitude, which was sooo kick butt!

Overall, the story was crazy good! The entire idea behind a school using girls with these super powers for corporate espionage was so interesting; I bet there are probably people who really do this too!

Don’t even get me started on the ending of Mind Games, because my brain is still mush! What a CRAZY ending. I can’t believe how this turned out!! I never saw it coming, and….just WOW!

But if I had to admit to one bad thing about Mind Games, it would be the structure. The story not only switched between the sisters’ perspectives, but also between different times. It would randomly go from the present to the past and then back to the present. Within a couple of chapters I got into the swing of things, but at first I was completely confused and lost.

If you get the chance to pick up Mind Games, I recommend you do! But beware: chapters don’t just take place in the present, but also in the past!

The Blue Bloods series has had many reviews: some good and some bad. Many people also seemed to be on the fence in their opinions, and I’ve finally decided to start this series and give it a shot. While I I do not find the covers very appealing, I was pretty interested in seeing what Melissa De La Cruz had in store for me. I guess the covers do their job of representing the story of vampires, but I feel like they could have been so much more beautiful and detailed …

After reading so many poor reviews on this series, what ultimately made me push those to the side and ignore them, was the awesome synopsis. I usually don’t grab for historical fiction books, but I thought it was really cool that the author incorporated the Mayflower and the early settlers into her vampire story.

My biggest worry was that this series would turn out to be more like “Twilight” than a modern day vampire story. But after reading about twenty or so pages, I let go of the breath I was holding. Blue Bloods takes place in Manhattan, New York, and revolves around wealthy high school teenagers.

Schuyler, the main character, isn’t feeling like herself. Her veins are turning bright blue underneath her pale skin. Something isn’t right, and Schuyler doesn’t know what to do or who to tell.

There are two different types of Blue Bloods, the immortal ones who live forever and the recycled ones who are always reborn but within different bodies and different life times. For these Blue Bloods to continue to be born and reborn again, before they pass away, they must keep a drop of blood which holds all their memories and thoughts.

When these vampires are born, they live what seems to be a normal life, until the age of sixteen. Just like Schuyler, they start to change and regain all of their memories of their old lives.

Blue Bloods are angels who have fallen from heaven. They hope to regain their angelic statuses by being good and just.

After a student is murdered, many Blue Bloods are suspicious that someone is after them, and they take drastic precautions to protect themselves and one another. They fear that Silver Bloods are out to get them. (Silver Bloods are another type of vampire.)

Schuyler is tossed into the middle of this entire thing–dealing with becoming a vampire again and having the Silver Bloods out to  get her. All this while, she’s modelling jeans and going to school.

So even though Blue Bloods wasn’t outrageously amazing, I do plan to continue the series. The first book always has a lot of ground to cover and explaining to do, so I understand why it wouldn’t be as action packed.

Now that I got that out of the way…

The things I liked about this book:

1. The way this world was set up with different types of vampires, Blue Bloods (immortal and recycled) and Silver Bloods. I’m interested in learning more about how these classifications came to be. And how they deal with one another.
2. I also found it intriguing how the author included the Mayflower and the settlers. This was one of the main reasons I wanted to read Blue Bloods, and it was one of my favorite parts of this book.

Things I didn’t … really like:

1. I just feel like there were a lot of lose ends that weren’t tied up. I understand that there are more books to this series, but I just felt that the topics brought up in Blue Bloods weren’t completely finished.
2. Schuyler and her jeans modelling. There are so many girls spending their entire lives preparing, wishing, and compromising everything to become models. But for some reason, Schuyler is dragged to this modelling interview, and basically begged to model … really? She  basically has offers thrown at her!