Friday 56 and Book Beginning: Dragon God (The First Dragon Rider Trilogy #1) by Ava Richardson || Friday 50/50: Favorite/Least Favorite Red Cover Design

This is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice

These are the rules:

1. Grab a book, any book.

2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.

3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.

4. Post it.

5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post.

Please join us over at RoseCityReader every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

Synopsis:

The new world is calling... 

    Niell Torvald is desperate to prove himself—his father’s warlord kingdom depends on him. When a vicious attack on the way to the Draconis Order monastery nearly kills him, it becomes clear that grave trials await him on this path. Joreth, the wise monk who saves his life, advises caution upon entering the sacred halls. His mission is to learn arcane magic from the monks that will help to cement his father’s power, but Niell will need more than magical arts alone to navigate the challenges before him. 

    Among the monks’ students, Niell meets the lovely and mysterious Char, who senses evil deep within the ranks of the Draconis Order’s members. She takes him to a dragon she has raised, Paxala, and the three of them become fast friends. Niell soon grows in strength as he and his fellow students gain ancient knowledge, and his closeness to Char blossoms into something more. 

    But when Niell’s brothers grow impatient and attack the monastery in a bid to seize power, he will have to decide where his loyalties lie: with his warlord father’s domain, or the new friends he has made in the wider world.

Book Beginning:

PROLOGUE
Malos & Malice
The Personal Letters of Malos Torvald, Chosen Warden of the Eastern Marches, as written in Autumn, the Year of the Fire-Ruby, Under the Rule of Prince Vincent, Heir Apparent to the Middle Kingdom

My 56:

"Down! It's a dragon," he hissed, looking up into the sky frantically, but Paxala had seemingly vanished.
 Good. Maybe I can pretend that this is a wild dragon... I thought; when we were both flattened to the ground by a sudden beat of wind as a dark shape rushed us.

*   *   *   *   *   *

50/50 Friday is a new weekly link-up hosted by Carrie @ The Butterfly Reader and Laura @ Blue Eye Books.  Every week they have a new topic featuring two sides of the same coin - you share a book that suits each category and link up on the hosts' blogs.

Favorite

Least

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Novellas

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish,
And has recently moved to That Artsy Reader Girl's site. 

To take part, just pick your top ten, and add the link here.

I feel like I've already done this list, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Oh well.

Covers are linked to the Goodreads page, this list is also in no particular order.

Friday 56 and Book Beginning: The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black by E.B. Hudspeth || Friday 50/50: Favorite Book That's the Most/Least Quotable

This is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice

These are the rules:

1. Grab a book, any book.

2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.

3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.

4. Post it.

5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post.

Please join us over at Rose City Reader every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

So, this is a book that I bought for purely aesthetic reasons. I haven't fully read it yet, because I had hoped that more of the book had the diagrams for mythological creatures. It's still half the book, but I wanted most of the book to have them. It's an all-around gorgeous book though.

Basically, it's a fake medical journal for fantasy and mythology creatures.

Synopsis

    Philadelphia, the late 1870s. A city of gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and horse-drawn carriages—and home to the controversial surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a grave robber, young Dr. Black studies at Philadelphia’s esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world’s most celebrated mythological beasts—mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs—were in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind? 

      The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from a childhood spent exhuming corpses through his medical training, his travels with carnivals, and the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black’s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy for mythological beasts—dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus—all rendered in meticulously detailed anatomical illustrations. You need only look at these images to realize they are the work of a madman. The Resurrectionist tells his story

Book Beginning:

1851-1868

Childhood

In my childish imagination, God's wrathful arm was ever-ready and ever-present

 -Spencer Black

Dr. Spencer Black and his older brother, Bernard, were born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1851 and 1841, respectively.

My 56:

No records remain of Goethe's extraordinary collection; most of it was consumed in a 1902 blaze. A few artifacts were recovered, but certainly nothing remarkable.

*   *   *   *   *

50/50 Friday is a new weekly link-up hosted by Carrie @ The Butterfly Reader and Laura @ Blue Eye Books.  Every week they have a new topic featuring two sides of the same coin - you share a book that suits each category and link up on the hosts' blogs.

Least Quotable

(Because literally, nothing happens in this series that I can remember)

Most

1. “Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love.
It did not end well.”

2. “Wishes are false. Hope is true. Hope makes its own magic.”

3. “Have you ever asked yourself, do monsters make war, or does war make monsters?” 

Review: Fallen Crest Forever by Tijan

Title: Fallen Crest Forever
Author: Tijan
Series: Fallen Crest High #7
Genre: New Adult/Contemporary Romance
Publication Date: May 16th, 2017
Edition: Kindle Edition, 300 pages
Source: Library
Purchase/Pre-Order: Amazon US | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | BAM

Synopsis:

   Mason Kade is the dream. 

He is the promise. 

He’s offering what so many would fantasize about, and it’s not that I don’t want it/him/us. 

It’s the opposite. 

There might be ghosts haunting me, but this man who's my soulmate is asking me for forever. 

How can I say no to someone who already gave me my happily ever after?

Review:

What's this!? Two reviews in one week! This hasn't happened in a long time.

Anyway, I got the book from the library a little sooner than I had expected, which is actually really great. And even though this book apparently has 300 pages, the genre has always been quick reads for me, since it's set in the real world with not really any complex storylines, or undertones to the themes. Things are always what they seem.

I really liked this book. Apart from Logan's standalone, and the Mason novella this might be my favorite book in the series. Not that I didn't enjoy the rest of the books, because I did, this one just finally showed them starting to grow up. Something pretty traumatizing happens that causes Sam to need to take a step back and force everybody in her circle to realize the damage they are causing themselves and the damage they could cause others because of their brash behavior. It was something that I really needed to happen in this series. They are people who are in their mid-20's and never really think of consequences before acting. 

I really liked how mature everybody was starting to behave, using logic and a calm head to solve problems, rather than fists or manipulation. Again, this really needed to happen in order for me to not feel like they were just going to remain in such a potentially toxic relationship.

The ending felt... rushed. The mini epilogues kind of gave me a non-ending to their story. I didn't really feel like anything was all that wrapped up. For me, it felt like things were shoved into a little box with a big pretty bow and I'm expected to feel satisfied, even though not all the parts were wrapped up with everything else. 

But this might be a minority opinion, and that's okay too.

I do have one major complaint about this series as a whole though. I don't really like how everybody who is outside their circle of friends, or one of the major circle of friends is such a mindless sheep to follow the herd and want to be in one of those groups, and are always in awe of everybody. I am sure there are people like that in the world, it just seems to be painted with such a wide brush to be everybody that encounters them wants to be friends with or date one of them. It's kind of absurd from my perspective.
Granted, I have never met or know anyone who has met a 1%-er.

Review: Fallen Crest Home by Tijan

Title: Fallen Crest Home
Author: Tijan
Series: Fallen Crest High #6
Genre: New Adult/Contemporary Romance
Publication Date: April 16th, 2017
Edition: Kindle Edition, 300 pages
Source: Library
Purchase/Pre-Order: Amazon US | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | BAM


Synopsis:
It's been years since my mother was in my life.
I healed.
I learned to accept love.
I lived.
That's all done. She was away, and now she's back.
I avoided her for a year and a half, but I couldn't hide anymore.
Mason had an internship in Fallen Crest, so we headed back for the summer.
And when we got there--no one was prepared for what happened.

Review:

This book gave me exactly what I've come to expect from this series. And I don't mean that in a bad way at all. This is one of my favorite contemporary romance series' out there. It's a little trashy, and the situations these characters have gotten into throughout the series are just so over the top and insane that it's just so far from the realm of reality for me that I often find things a little silly.

Sam and Mason have been through some pretty insane stuff since the start of the series, they clearly care deeply for each other, but it's started to seem like a really dependent and borderline toxic relationship. The way they got together and all that they've been through, so far, they have used it as a reason to stay together, but it should really be used as a reason to not be together.

I'm getting ahead of myself, there's still one book left in the series, I'm on the waiting list at my library for it.

I struggle to root for anybody in this book; because everybody is an asshole. Granted our main characters are the way they are because of abusive and neglectful parents, and I can relate to the anger they must feel to a degree, but being dicks to just about everybody else doesn't excuse them. Since they are 1%-ers I wonder if they behave this way because they feel entitled to? I was middle class, at best, growing up so I don't really know how "The other side" lives or thinks, making this all speculation.

I do look forward to the ending of the series, these characters are in their early-mid 20's at this point, but they still pull shit that teenagers would when it comes to handling things. I hope they all grow up in the next book.

*Side note: I realized afterward, that this is the first review I have written on my blog in a couple months. 
 reading slumps.... amirite?