Review: Prodigy

Prodigy
By: Marie Lu
Sequel to Legend
Publish Date: January 2013

Summary (from goodreads): Injured and on the run, it has been seven days since June and Day barely escaped Los Angeles and the Republic with their lives. Day is believed dead having lost his own brother to an execution squad who thought they were assassinating him. June is now the Republic's most wanted traitor. Desperate for help, they turn to the Patriots - a vigilante rebel group sworn to bring down the Republic. But can they trust them or have they unwittingly become pawns in the most terrifying of political games?

Review: It's been a long time since I read Legend, over a year, but some how Legend's story line was still fresh in my mind. While it was another dystopian novel, it had a different take. A more military stand than the others that I have read. When I finally had time to pick up Prodigy, I was beyond excited to see where Marie Lu was going to take the story. 

Surprisingly Prodigy was even better then  Legend. Now that the world has been set up, and the characters introduced, Marie Lu was able to dive right into the story line. The fast paced movement of Prodigy while learning more of the world as Day and June did was so much fun. Once I was able to pick up Legend it was extremely hard to put down.

 As we gets deeper into this world we also get deeper into the characters. Lu was able to keep the aspects of the characters that we met in Legend but also dive farther into their thoughts and actions. June and Day also had some kick-ass action scenes that kept the suspense going. 

If you read Legend the sequel is one you don't want to miss. Prodigy will keep you on your toes, and unable to guess what will happen next.  The military and political side to this series is so different and exciting, it helps them stand out between the many other dysotpian novels that can be found of YA shelves. I'll be impatiently waiting for the third installment of this series until November. But for now here's the cover, which actually my favorite one in the series! 


--Danielle

College Life and Blogging

Good Morning!

I know I've been MIA for about a year now, but I'm hoping this changes soon. I really miss interacting with other bloggers and readers. Now that I've been at college for a month (and it's been a great and exciting month) I think I got a pattern down for blogging, work, studying, and other activities. I've read a few books that I want to post reviews for, so hopefully I'm able to start making With A Book an active blog again.

Here's a little update on my life this past year I've been away. I applied to many difference colleges and decided to attend Rutgers University in NJ. I've been here for a little over a month now and have loved every moment of it. Classes are great, I'm actually going to try and take a writing class next semester all about blogging. I love how you can take classes that are for your own interests in college and you don't have to get a set schedule from the school. There's so many different classes to choose from and so many English classes that I want to take. Here's some pictures of my campus:

The brand new Barnes and Nobles on Campus!

I have a job here at school, it's in a library, but with the Archives for the University and not the library itself. Which is different from when I'm used to after working at my local library over the summer.

I've actually read a few interesting books for school so far and can't decide if I should review them or not. They are mostly non-fiction and historical. Any thoughts?

Another thing that I considered was reviewing more them books here on With a Book. Just other things I buy and run into that I feel like others would like to hear about, for example make-up, and beauty products. Is that something any of you would be interested in? Or should I leave With a Book strictly a book blog? This is something that I've considered for some time now. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Don't forget to follow With a Book on tumblr too! I can post more often there and reblog cute book quotes and pictures along with my own posts.

--Danielle

City of Bones Movie Review

Yesterday I finally got to see City of Bones in theaters. I have been looking forward to this movie since Cassandra Clare tweeted about it being optioned for a movie. I was ready to go to a midnight premiere to this movie, but for some reason they didn't have any, so I went the Saturday after it was release.

What did I think? Personally I loved it! Sure it was cheesy at times, and predicable (with or without having read the books) but getting to see your favorite book on the big screen is a great feeling. I thought all the actors did an amazing job, which doesn't surprise me. Almost all of them are great in everything I seen them in. Especially the actors playing Clary, Jace and Clary's mom. The only actor that I did have a problem with was the one playing Magnus. He seemed to be trying to hard, he looked the part but I cringed a little bit during his parts. However he was only in the movie for a few minutes, and I'll wait until the second movie before judging him to harshly.

Speaking of a second movie, I hope they are able to make one. I would love to see them continue to the series. But I'm a little doubtful about them making enough to do that. The theater that I was in (on a Saturday night) was empty, which is really weird for its time placement. I felt that they didn't do enough advertising before the movies release. I see ad's all the time now, but I didn't see them as much before the movie. I guess we'll have to wait and see how the movie does.

Even if you haven't read the books, this is an easy movie to get into. There's action, adventure, fantasy and romance. You can tell it's geared towards teens but that's what I am, so I didn't mind. If you have read the books I'm sure you will love the adaption. They stayed as true to the books as they could. Only a few small things were changed. That's to help it movie at a pace of a movie and not a 600 page book. They had to change some things to make it work and I think they made some great choices.

The writer even used the same witty banter that was in the book. The same lines that made me actually laugh out loud while reading. Sadly I don't think they fit as well into the movie as in the book but it was still fun to see that they kept the sarcasm.

Did any of you see the movie yet? I would love to know what you thought too! I've hard mixed things so far.

15 Day Book Blogger Challenge!

 Day 1: Make 15 book related confessions

1. If I’m bored while reading a book I’ll skim read until I get to an interesting part. 

2. I love fantasy novels

3. I always watch a movie before I read the book. 

4. I like to drink tea while I read

5. I can tell if it’s a really good book if I completely forget about the tea

6. I’ve never really cried while reading a book. They can make me sad or tear up but rarely a book will actually make me cry. 

7. I can’t sit still while reading. I have to move around every few minutes. Such as moving to the other side of the couch or from sitting up to laying down while I read. 

8. I’m a sucker for a colorful book cover. 

9. I hate covers with people on them. 

10. I own about 200 books that I haven’t read. 

11. I feel really bad that I haven’t been blogging the past 6 months. (I guess that’s more of a blog confession)

12. I only read the Harry Potter novels last year. 

13. I love to write in books as I read. 

14. I could care less if they changed the look in the series half way through as long as the books following the first novel are still as good as the first. 

15. I usually forget to keep up with a series unless if was mind blowing like Divergent, Delirium and City of Bones. 

New Adult Book Sampler

If you read my review of Wait For You yesterday then you know I found it on a New Adult book sampler. I thought I should share that sampler with you.

Summary from BN: Presenting Between the Covers, a free eBook sampler from the hottest New Adult books by the most popular authors in this emerging genre. This free eBook sampler is a curated volume of excerpts from new and upcoming titles from New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors including Wait for You by J. Lynn (Jennifer L. Armentrout); three books by Cora Carmack: Losing It, Faking It and Finding It; Dark Heroine by Abigail Gibbs; Foreplay by Sophie Jordan; three books by Molly McAdams: Taking Chances, From Ashes and Forgiving Lies; and The Registry by Shannon Stoker.

This sampler can be found on bn.com and amazon.com for free! I loved this because it gives you the first few chapters of these new novels so you can decide if you want to buy them. So far I've read the samplers for J.Lnn, Cara Carmack and Jay Crownover. All of them have been great and now I have a list of books to read! 

I've already read J. Lynn's novel and the first novel by Cara Carmack (review up soon). I have yet to be disappointed. I read love the New Adult genre because they are about characters that are my age. If you have any to suggest let me know! I would love to read some more New Adult novels. :)