Top Ten Tuesdays

Top 10 Character Names

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week a different question is posed and gives us bloggers an opportunity to share our top tens on all different types of bookish topics. 

Since I couldn't possibly choose just 10 names total...I decided to put a little spin on this and pick my top 10 favorite boy names AND my top 10 favorite girl names!

GIRLS

1. Katniss from The Hunger Games.  The name is just synonymous with being awesome. 

2. Sethie from The Stone Girl.  Short for Sarah Beth, and for some reason I just love it. I hate the name Seth for a boy, but Sethie somehow works for me.

3. Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird.  I named my dog after this character was I was in 9th grade. That dog is still alive and going strong today. She has a good name to keep her going!

4. Mara from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. The name is such a perfect fit for such a damaged character.

5. Spencer from Pretty Little Liars.  I love girls who can pull off a boys name.

6. Cassia from the Matched trilogy. The way I'm pronouncing it is really pretty in my head.

7. Cinder from (duh) Cinder. Love the Cinderella spin-off. It works.

8. Clary from The Mortal Instruments Series. I've always loved the name Clare, and I think I might like Clary even better.

9. Rory from The Name of the Star. I'm obsessed with Gilmore Girls, so of course Rory is a favorite name of mine. Especially when I like the new character who borrows the name.

10. Ismae from Grave Mercy. She was a strong character and carried her unusual name well. 

BOYS

1. Jace from The Mortal Instruments Series. It's short for JC and something about Jace just sounds so cool.

2. Atticus from To Kill a Mockingbird. A cooler dad name has never existed.

3. Ash from Black City. In a damaged city that has been burned to the ground, what name could be more fitting for the male hero than Ash?

4. Archer from Hex Hall. What a swagalicious name.

5. Noah from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I loved him so much that his name was automatically cool.

6. Ky from the Matched trilogy. I'm not usually a fan of such short names because they seem awkward, but somehow this one worked for me.

7. Duval from Grave Mercy. Such a strong, manly name!

8. Percy from The Lightning Thief. It sounds old-fashioned and modern at the same time. 

9. Aspen from The Selection. Hated the female main character's name, hated the other main male character's name, but LOVE the name Aspen!

10. It's past my bedtime I give up...

Thanks for stopping by!

  

Black City by Elizabeth Richards

Black City by Elizabeth Richards

Title: Black City

Series: Black City #1

Author: Elizabeth Richards

Page Count: 374

Publisher: Putnam

In the aftermath of a brutal and bloody war, in the still-smoldering Black City, sixteen-year-olds Natalie Buchanan and Ash Fisher do the unthinkable - they fall in love.  Natalie, a human and the daughter of a government official, is still reeling from her father's murder by a crazed Darkling, upending her entire life. So how can she now be falling for Ash, a brooding half-blood Darkling boy? Natalie's heart betrays everything she's ever believed with one magnetic beat, forcing her to choose between her family and the boy she loves.

Ash tries desperately to deny his feelings for Natalie. She is a Sentry brat, after all. The very Sentry who would love nothing more than to see all Darklings totally eradicated from the United Sentry States. For now, they've settled for banishing all Darklings to the wrong side of a ghetto wall. Despite being half-human and being allowed to live on the human side, Ash is still scorned everywhere he goes, always wondering what it would be like on the other side of the wall with his own kind. Then Natalie steps into his life, a calming force, and he, too, has to choose. But choosing Natalie could get them both killed.

My Thoughts

This book was an impulse buy from Amazon. I was browsing through books and somehow ended up on Black City. The cover was really pretty and the description was intriguing. So I ordered it. This is another impulse buy that I am SO GLAD I went with. I loved this story. I didn't want it to end, and when it ended anyway against my wishes, I went right out and bought Phoenix because I HAD to read the next installment in this series right away.

First things first. I thought the very first scene in the book was a little more risque than it needed to be. I get that what was going on needed to be described, but this was the only scene in the book that went to this level and struck me as a little uncomfortable for a young adult book. Then again, I teach 8th grade so I might be a little over-sensitive about certain things. Anywho. Moving on. 

I loved Ash. I liked Natalie a lot, but I loved Ash. While both characters were very well developed I found that I liked Ash just a little bit more. But together they were great. We have the slightly overdone privileged girl rebelling against her family to date the bad boy, but it worked. Natalie ended up making sacrifices for Ash, which cemented my belief in the reality of their relationship. Ash was intriguing. The hints about his family and the Darkling race were vague enough to pique my curiosity but also gave me just enough information to keep me from getting frustrated. I really enjoyed the switching back and forth between their viewpoints because it let me see certain situations from more than one angle. Even when one character knew something that the other didn't the switching viewpoints weren't confusing to me. I was completely invested in both characters within a couple chapters.

The world building was pretty effective in this book. The author shared a lot of information with us without coming right out and just listing everything that had happened. We learn about the wall and Darklings and half-bloods and their culture bit by bit as the story progresses. The new knowledge that is shared with us comes naturally with the story and never seems forced. I enjoyed learning about this dystopian world, and imagined myself living in it as one of Ash or Natalie's friends. The action was fast-paced and the story moved right along. With the viewpoint switching back and forth every chapter you didn't have to worry about anything dragging out too long or getting boring. As the end of the book approached I found myself reading faster and faster because I couldn't wait to read what was going to happen next.

This was a great dystopian read in my opinion. The world building was effective and the characters were easy to get attached to. The books ended on such a high note that I ran right out to buy the second installment in the series! Can't wait for the third book to come out next year!

Top Ten Tuesdays

Top Ten Best/Worst Series Endings

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Best

1. The Hunger Games Trilogy

The ending of Mockingjay broke my heart, but I still felt the ending was appropriate and really got the point across. Anything else would have seemed like taking the easy way out. It was sad, but necessary. I approve.

2. The Twilight Saga

Ok, by saying I liked the ending of this series is NOT the same as saying I think it was well-written or quality literature. Because the Twilight books were neither of those things. But they sure were entertaining! And Breaking Dawn wrapped up all the loose ends, while also leaving the possibility that maybe some day a spin-off could be written... All my questions were answered in the end and I was happy.

3.  Pretty Little Liars

I know this series is not concluded, and probably won't be for a long time, but these books are my guilty pleasure. And there's so many of them that I feel like they won't end until we have learned everything and all the mysteries have been solved.

4.  Anna Dressed in Blood/Girl of Nightmares

Why couldn't there be more?! I kinda wish there had been more focus on Anna in the second book, but Kendare Blake knew what she was doing and both books rocked my world!

5. I need to finish more series!

Worst

6.  Fallen Series

Yawn. Stop whining. Enough already.

7.  Matched Trilogy

This makes me sad because Matched was super cute, and I really enjoyed Crossed. But something about Reached just didn't work for me. It seemed like the book couldn't decide what it wanted to be. The story went off in one direction then changed it's mind and went back in a different direction. I guess two out of three isn't horrible...

8. Shiver

I know this was a series but I didn't even bother with the second two. I finished the first book because I have NEVER DNF a book, but I didn't even consider reading the other books. I just wanted the first one to end. By the last five or six chapters, I was just reading the first and last page of each chapter because I wanted it to be over. 

9.  Wings Series

This should have been a trilogy. I think it would have been ok with three books. But turning it into four books just seemed like a stretch. Cute stories and ideas, but quit while you're ahead. For the record, I did enjoy the books, just don't believe there was really enough there for four books.

10.  Again, need to finish more series!

Series I Can't Wait To Finish:

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer 

Series: Mara Dyer Trilogy

Author: Michelle Hodkin

Page Count: 452

Publisher: Simon & Schuster 

Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed. There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. She's wrong.

My Thoughts

     I ordered this book from Amazon after reading multiple reviews on some of my favorite blogs that just raved about the book. It was also featured on a poster I came across (http://themetapicture.com/the-united-states-of-ya/) entitled The United States of YA. I was intrigued by the title, the cover, and all the reviews I read about it, so I ended up giving in to temptation and ordering a copy from Amazon. I do not regret it.

     I loved Mara. She was such a mess. She tried so hard to be normal and please her parents, but she was seriously just a hot mess. I think I was as desperate as she was to figure out what had happened to her/what went down that fateful night of the accident. My need to know made it impossible to put this book down. I read it in under 24 hours. I liked how Mara struggled on her own for so long, and attempted to keep her problems to herself/be her own problem-solver. I was reluctant for her to let anyone else in. I liked her family members, even the over-involved tendencies of her mother. I thought her older brother was a little too helpful at times, being too willing to lie to their parents for her and help her get away with things. I even liked Noah. He was just damaged enough to be a good match for Mara. I am a little tired of characters that very conveniently come from a family that just so happens to have millions and millions of dollars and throws money around like it doesn't matter, but that was my main issue with Noah.

     Michelle Hodkin's writing was beautiful, even though there were so many typos in the book that I lost count. Her writing made everything seem so realistic and, well, real, that the spooky stuff really got to me! I love creepy books and this one definitely exceeded my expectations on that front. The writing was so flawless and beautiful that I was completely wrapped up in this story. Especially when Mara and Noah were interacting. I really felt like I could hear every word exactly as it was being said and picture every movement. I love when that happens.

     The twists and turns in this story are great. Some of them were predictable while others were completely off the wall! I prefer a story that keeps me guessing, and this one did just that. There were some plot twists that I loved and others that drove me crazy (because they made things difficult for the characters I had come to love), but they made for a high-paced, impossible-to-put-down story. The last 50 pages or so of this book were so intense that I couldn't even think about anything else. The rest of my world ceased to exist because I had to focus solely on this story and getting to the end. I was desperate to find out what happened, but at the same time didn't want the story to end. Let's just say, the ending made me want to drive to the bookstore in my pajamas to buy the next book in the trilogy!

     So while there were a few minor annoyances in this book (namely the conveniently rich male character and some conveniently lax family members), the main character is easy to love and the story itself is addictive. Highly recommend reading this one! And I cannot wait to read the rest of the trilogy!

Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter

Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter

Title: Alice in Zombieland

Series: The White Rabbit Chronicles

Author: Gena Showalster

Page Count: 404

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

     She won't rest until she's sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever

     Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that's all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.

     Her father was right. The monsters are real.

     To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn't careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous that the zombies. 

My Thoughts

     Where do I begin?! I loved this book! I actually ordered this book from Amazon because I judged it by it's cover and decided I just HAD to have it. And I was right. I needed this book in my life. A story about crazy, creepy zombies that is loosely based on the idea of Alice in Wonderland? Gena Showalter is a genius. It would have been cool if there were even more connections to Alice in Wonderland, but I was really happy with the ones that were there.

     So the cover is awesome. Our main character Alice is also awesome. I loved the peaceful beginning of the story, and how effectively the relationships between Alice and her family members were developed. In a very short amount of time I not only completely understood her relationship with her sister, her mother, and her father, but I understood the relationships and found them all completely believable. Then the build of action began. I knew from reading the back cover that something awful was going to happen to Alice's family. But as I was reading I still found myself hoping that maybe, just maybe, they would survive. I was heartbroken along with Alice when the accident happened. Her reactions were exactly what I think my reactions would be in that kind of situation. I decided Alice was my fictional sister, or soulmate, or something. For the rest of the book, everything she said or did just made sense.

     The other characters: Kat, Alice's best friend, was a little ridiculous, but in such a good way. I loved the things she said, and I could totally picture a girl acting this way as she tried to rule her high school. Cole was the epitome of a bad boy (until he turned all sentimental around Alice, which somehow was still believable), as was his whole crew of hoodlum buddies.

     Enough gushing about the characters. I also loved the plot. It built up steadily, getting increasingly intense,to the point where I read the final third of the book without stopping even though it was waaaaaay past my self-prescribed bedtime. As creepy as the zombies were, I wanted to be in this world with Alice and her friends to learn how to fight them. A LOT of things happened in this book, especially close to the end, and a lot of it is obviously leading into the next book (which I just received and CANNOT wait to read!), but enough questions were answered that I wasn't left frustrated. The descriptions of what was going on were perfect; as I was reading I was picturing myself right alongside Alice. There wasn't anything extra or annoying or unnecessary written into this book. Everything was there for a reason and everything belonged.

     I love Gena Showalter. This book was a new take on zombies, and it was one that I really, really liked. And she was so crafty with her design of the story that I actually couldn't predict things before they happened. In fact, I was dead wrong several times, which I love because that means the book is even more exciting! Let's just say I was wrong about several of the characters and what role they would play as they were introduced. The only thing I was not completely pleased with (mini-spoiler-alert) was how easily Alice's grandmother accepted certain things. With the way her world was being rocked, I thought she would have stronger reactions. Other than that, perfection. I loved it. I hope this turns into more than a trilogy...an ongoing series would be wonderful...please?

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

Title: Grave Mercy

Series: His Fair Assassin, Book 1

Author: Robin LaFevers

Page Count: 576

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

     Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts - and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

     Ismae's most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany - where she finds herself woefully under prepared - not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death's vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart? 

My Thoughts

     This book was actually recommended to me by one of my 8th grade students...and while I think it may be more appropriate for high school students than for middle schoolers, I am definitely glad she brought the book to my attention! The description on the back cover grabbed my attention, and the first review I read online referred to the book as the story of NINJA-NUNS! Who wouldn't want to read a book about ninja-nuns!

     Overall, I liked Grave Mercy a lot. It was fun to read, and I was eager to find out what would happen next. I found the book difficult to put down. I liked Ismae, the main character, and I enjoyed the extent of her thoughts that were shared with us. Her train of thought was always present, almost to the point where her actions became easy to predict. I liked the storyline, even though the initial 'historical' components could have been explained a little more clearly. We are introduced to a lot of characters who play important but intermittent roles, and I found myself getting them a little confused as the book went on. 

     I did not like the speed with which the "love connection" showed up in the story. Ismae went from being suspicious of Duval to gushing about how in love with him she was. There was very little in-between and I found that odd. For as long as the story was and as much detail as the author went into on other parts of the story, I thought the love story could have been developed a little better. The relationship between Duval and his siblings was also weird to me. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't go into detail, but based on family history I found the closeness of the siblings a little unrealistic.

     The historical aspects of the story were what I really loved. I was so thrilled by the idea of these super secret ninja nuns who kept the country of Brittany safe from evil. The espionage and plotting and secrecy and assassinations were worth putting up with the other not-so-great parts. In fact, by the time I got to the end of the book I loved the story so much that I temporarily forgot that there were parts I didn't like. In the interest of an honest review, I forced myself to remember them, but the good definitely outweighs the bad in my opinion! I am looking forward to reading the rest of this trilogy (although I'm hoping the relationships are developed a little better in future books!).

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

Title: Hex Hall
Series: Hex Hall
Author: Rachel Hawkins
Publisher: Hyperion
Page Count: 323

     On her 12th birthday, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. Three bumpy years later, after a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, she's exiled to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.
     By the end of her first day, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Then when a mysterious predator begins attacking students, and Sophie's only friend is the number-one suspect, a horrifying plot begins to surface. Soon, Sophie is preparing for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her. 

My Thoughts

     I thought about reading this book for a while before I actually decided to pick it up and read it. I was intrigued by the description, but at the same time the cover (and parts of the description!) made me afraid that it might turn out to be a little cheesy. But after reading somewhere that it was a great boarding school drama, I finally decided to give it a chance.

     While I wasn't blown away by this story, it was definitely worth the time. Despite having a lot of references to dark magic and evil secret societies, it seemed to be a light read to me.          The characters were fun and likeable, although Sophie seemed a little inconsistent to me. I guess that does make sense considering what her character is going through, but there were some spots where her random behaviors irritated me a little bit. I wasn't a big fan of the guy she had a crush on, especially since she decided she had a crush on him after looking at him once. I get that girls (both real and fictional) are attracted to the bad boy, but it got to be a little irritating that she didn't like this guy's personality OR his girlfriend, yet she constantly talked about what a huge crush she had on him.

     The storyline was fun, and definitely kept moving right along. I never got bored or frustrated with the story itself, and was always curious to find out what would happen next. I don't like to take a break from reading in the middle of the chapter, but whenever I got to the end of a chapter in this book I found myself saying, "Ok, I'll just read one more..." The ending seemed to happen a little suddenly, but considering that this is part of a series, I guess I can actually understand why.

     Overall, I didn't love Hex Hall, but I definitely liked it a lot and will eventually read the other books in the series. I hope the storylines stay as fast-paced as this one, and Sophie finds someone more worthwhile to lust over!