Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay

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Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay
Series: N/A
Source: Bought hardcover
Publisher: Delacorte Books
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2013
Age Genre: YA
Challenges: TBR
Challenges: Flight of Fantasy
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In the beginning was the darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret...In the domed city of Yuan, the blind Princess Isra, a Smooth Skin, is raised to be a human sacrifice whose death will ensure her city’s vitality. In the desert outside Yuan, Gem, a mutant beast, fights to save his people, the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that together, they could return balance to both their worlds.
Isra wants to help the city’s Banished people, second-class citizens despised for possessing Monstrous traits. But after she enlists the aid of her prisoner, Gem, who has been captured while trying to steal Yuan’s enchanted roses, she begins to care for him, and to question everything she has been brought up to believe.
As secrets are revealed and Isra’s sight, which vanished during her childhood, returned, Isra will have to choose between duty to her people and the beast she has come to love.

Oh my. Oh my. I never expected this book to be... this book. I mean, it was on my GR TBR for so long. First, I saw the gorgeous cover, than read the title and found out it was a Beauty and the Beast retelling (duh), and I was sold. But I did not expect this world, which is actually a bit of sci-fi and a lot of magic, or the beautiful writing, or the captivating characters. And I did not expect to feel like calling this a retelling is belittling it.

In Of Beast and Beauty, there is no clear "beast" and no clear "beauty".

Isra is a blind princess doomed to a horrible fate. She is strong, opinionated, kind, but also very much a prisoner in her own city. She thinks herself "tainted" by the mutation her people fears so much, and instead of being Belle enslaved by the beast, she is the one who does the enslaving when she meets Gem, a Monstrous, as he is infiltrating her city and makes him a prisoner.

Gem may be a beast in his appearance, but he is such a good person. He only thinks of the best of his people, can't kill even when his duty tells him he must. He tries to hate and yet he can't. And no matter his motivations, he treats Isra with kindness and attention. The (almost) only person in her life who does.

These two are just... *sigh* I mean, seriously, the shipping is crazy. They just... work! They bring the best in each other, they encourage each other to be better, they open each other's eyes. They're also HAWT like lava and so very delicious. And the best part? It takes time for their relationship to grow. They start as semi enemies, then reluctant partners, then friends, then... more. It's beautiful!

Then there's Gaston--I mean, Bo. Occasionally, we get a glimpse into his pov. That was smart, because Jay lets us see Gaston Bo is not a bad person. He is a product of years of prejudice and false information. He truly believes what he's doing is right, and he does have a heart and a sense of right and wrong. He just can't look past all he's been told to see the truth.

okay, Bo is no monster, but how was I supposed to resist?

Another character worth mentioning is Needle, Isra's maid. I love this girl, and I kind of really really wanted to see her happy with someone. I'm all for Jay writing a sequel for Needle, maybe with Gem's brother? I feel like she could really teach him compassion and love...

The ending of this book was so amazing! And quite different than the Disney ending.

Honestly, I don't have enough words to recommend this book with. Just read it, please. It deserves more love!

   Nitzan★

And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard

And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard
Series: N/A
Source: Netgalley (Thanks, Delacorte!)
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: January 28, 2014

"In And We Stay, Jenny Hubbard treats tragedy and new beginnings with a skilled, delicate hand.  Her otherworldly verse and prose form a flowing monument to all the great storytellers of the past." --John Corey Whaley, author of the Michael L. Printz and William C. Morris award winner, Where Things Come Back

When high school senior Paul Wagoner walks into his school library with a stolen gun, he threatens his girlfriend Emily Beam, then takes his own life. In the wake of the tragedy, an angry and guilt-ridden Emily is shipped off to boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she encounters a ghostly presence who shares her name. The spirit of Emily Dickinson and two quirky girls offer helping hands, but it is up to Emily to heal her own damaged self.

This inventive story, told in verse and in prose, paints the aftermath of tragedy as a landscape where there is good behind the bad, hope inside the despair, and springtime under the snow.

She had almost laughed at how absurd it all was, how water made mud of the ground. How hearts made mud of the world.

And We Stay is one of those books that's hard to explain - there was a lot of emotion and a lot of tragedy, but it's really hard to say why it hit me the way it did. I'm usually not a huge fan of poetry, but I really enjoyed Emily's. It flowed very well, and even the normal writing of And We Stay was beautiful and poetic.

But let's talk about Emily herself. I didn't really connect with her, but this is a different case than usual. It's not that she's flat. The reason that I couldn't connect with her was very simple - she doesn't connect with herself. She's so lost in her grief and even her solitude that it just kills her personality. And let me tell you, it's hard to read about someone who's dying inside. But she regains a little of her life throughout the book, and that's what's so great about it. You get to see her journey from one moment in her life to the next. And it's interesting.

As I said before, the writing was gorgeous, and it made it all that much easier for the past and the future to intertwine seamlessly throughout And We Stay. I never felt jarred or anything like that, which is very rare for me.

The biggest thing that And We Stay communicates is an overwhelming sadness - and honestly, sometimes it's great to be sad. I liked being sad for this book, and figuring out the mysteries of how and why that it left behind.

All in all, And We Stay is a good read. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who's looking for a sad, heartfelt read.

The same sky that once held her dreams has stolen her story. And the stars will know just how to tell it: night after night, over and over.

The boy I loved had the veins of the ancient. He was eighteen, but also a hundred and eighty, Biblical and stubborn as stone lodged in the earth.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Series: N/A
Source: Netgalley (Thanks, Delacorte!)
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: May 13, 2014

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

We were warm and shivering, and young and ancient, and alive. I was thinking, It's true. We already love each other. We already do.

Sometimes, (not always but sometimes) you find a book that leaves you in a stunned world where nothing can touch you for a day or two. We book lovers like to call that a book hangover, and it's a perfectly acceptable term to use for this feeling. We Were Liars was that book. I spent the next few hours after reading this trying to duplicate the awesome high that it gave me. I thought about it for the rest of the day. I called up my reading friend, and told her all about it while I tried to convince her to read it. I started a new book, knowing that it would probably be nothing like what I had just read - and was still processing. It wouldn't be a lie to say that We Were Liars totally and completely blew my mind.

It was one of those books where you knew what was coming, but you couldn't stand to think about it - so you blocked it out. And you hoped against all logical thought that maybe you were wrong, maybe it wouldn't all end in the way it was going to. Sometimes books are perfect, even if maybe they aren't perfect in the literal sense.

Honestly, all I really want to do with this review is quote line after perfectly poetic line. But I won't, I talk about some other things too.

We Were Liars started off with a real bang - an instant "I need more" kind of line.

Welcome to the beautiful Sinclair family. No one is a criminal. No one is an addict. No one is a failure.

From that first line, I knew I wanted to know everything about this family. I knew immediately that they were going to be screwed up, and that there was going to be a tragedy - but I still wanted to know it. And most of all, I wanted to know all about Cadence. At first I thought I would dislike her, but it only turns out that I pity her, in a large way. I assumed that she was probably bipolar, and that she was for sure depressed.

But I didn't know everything about her right away. I liked that I had to work my way through the book, waiting for every single new fact to reveal itself. I lived for those reveals. Each little hint came out of nowhere, and somehow it all fit together into a beautifully crafted mystery. Some things were obvious, but most were hidden under the surface.

In many ways, We Were Liars was one of the saddest books I've read. I wanted to love Gat as much as Cadence did, but I couldn't get him. I thought that he was a jerk of the highest quality for most of the book, but when the end came... let's just say that I've never apologized to any fictional character as much as I did to him. I thought that he was so back and forth and up and down, but really, he's just a normal kind of guy. He doesn't deserve to be scorned, because his story is tragic.

Now, he was free to go forth and make a name for himself in the wide, wide world. And maybe, just maybe, he'd come back one day, and burn that fucking palace to the ground.

All of We Were Liars was tragic. And I never wanted it to end. I guess I'll leave you with one final line, to whet your appetite for this book - if I haven't already. And honestly, I'm already hoping that you've dropped everything and ordered this book - because it's simply beautiful.

My full name is Cadence Sinclair Eastman.
I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools.
I like a twist of meaning.
I endure.

Being Sloane Jacobs by Lauren Morrill

Being Sloane Jacobs by Lauren Morrill
Series: N/A
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Delacorte
Publication Date: January 7, 2014

Meet Sloane Emily Jacobs: a seriously stressed-out figure-skater from Washington, D.C., who choked during junior nationals and isn’t sure she’s ready for a comeback. What she does know is that she’d give anything to escape the mass of misery that is her life.

Now meet Sloane Devon Jacobs, a spunky ice hockey player from Philly who’s been suspended from her team for too many aggressive hip checks. Her punishment? Hockey camp, now, when she’s playing the worst she’s ever played. If she messes up? Her life will be over.

When the two Sloanes meet by chance in Montreal and decide to trade places for the summer, each girl thinks she’s the lucky one: no strangers to judge or laugh at Sloane Emily, no scouts expecting Sloane Devon to be a hero. But it didn’t occur to Sloane E. that while avoiding sequins and axels she might meet a hockey hottie—and Sloane D. never expected to run into a familiar (and very good-looking) face from home. It’s not long before the Sloanes discover that convincing people you’re someone else might be more difficult than being yourself.

I really wanted to love Being Sloane Jacobs, I really really wanted to. But I just... didn't. I guess I couldn't wrap my head around the concept, as potentially cute and adorable as it could have been, I felt like it fell a bit flat.

Sloane and Sloane were just... too much alike. You'd think that they would be polar opposites, because, hey. Alternating points of view + trading places just doesn't do all that great when they act similar. I mean, it was easy to tell them apart, but mostly because they each had a different cast of supporting characters. But... the secondary characters really weren't that filled out. And don't even get me started on the boys - what a bunch of drama queens! I just didn't care for either love interest.

Another issue that I had was skating. I really don't understand a lot of skating terms or just anything about it. Ice skating in general is just a mystery to me! Thankfully it really wasn't that over the top on skating - I mean, I never did figure out what an axel was... but... there's not a thing I can do about it.

The ending was pretty much unbelievable, but in a good way - in a fun, interesting way. All in all, Being Sloane Jacobs was a fun piece of fluff, but it's not particularly memorable. I'll be trying Lauren's Meant to Be, though!