Happy Book Birthday to Kelsey Sutton!!! + Review of THE BROKENHEARTED

A happiest of book birthdays to my friend Kelsey Sutton and her debut novel Some Quiet Place! Coming up soon there will be a guest post from Kelsey (July 17) and I'm so excited to see what she will have for us! I know it has something to do with Emotions and if you haven't read Some Quiet Place yet you definitely should! A few posts ago I participated in the cover reveal for SQP and I'm thrilled to also be in the blog tour this month that Gabriella is hosting at the Modgepodge Bookshelf! She created a lovely blog tour button that I just have to share now even though it's not my "turn" in the tour.







Feel free to snag it and put it on your sidebars! I know it's simply lovely.






Anyway, I feel like it's time for me to get to the second part of this post, which is a short review of an ARC of The Brokenhearted by Amelia Kahaney. I snagged this ARC from my local independent bookstore (along with three others, so expect reviews of those as well) and I plan to give it away as a part of this post. Appropriate, I think, considering it's SQP's birthday.

Here are the specs for The Brokenhearted:
Pub Date: Oct 8, 2013
Publisher: HarperTeen
Hardcover, 320 pages
ISBN: 0062230921
Official Website for Amelia Kahaney

Synopsis:
Anthem Fleet is the ultimate society girl or at least she should be. Her father--a real estate tycoon--is fabulously wealthy and powerful and her mother is a beauty queen turned socialite. They have it all, the penthouse, the cars, the perfect straight-A ballerina daughter. Until Anthem makes a series of decisions that change her life forever and propel her into a role she had not practiced for her entire life, but one that she chooses to accept regardless.

The setting is Bedlam City, a novelistic place reminiscent of Gotham, and I think it's meant to evoke that same darker urban feeling that the most recent Batman films have captured so perfectly. There are slums--South Side--where criminals of the Syndicate deal in drugs, guns, theft, and body parts for those willing to undergo surgery in the most disreputable of places.

But despite that darkness, the people of the South Side want to believe in a better future, one where the city isn't divided by a river known as the Crime Line, and one where police don't conduct raids with Fear Gas and beat those people not afraid to protest the corruption.

Initially, I found The Brokenhearted to be a bit slow, but once I grew accustomed to the world and the pace picked up, I couldn't put it down. Much like the cover says, once Anthem's "heart stopped" her "life started" and so did the action in the novel. From simply looking at the cover, one might assume that this book is of the steampunk genre, but in my humble opinion, I don't think I'd classify it as such. There are more elements of the superhero type of narrative particularly with regards to Batman-esque type of social avenger, but I suppose you'll have to read it to find out.

To help one lucky reader towards that goal, I will be giving this ARC away! Fill out the Rafflecopter entries below and cross your fingers! a Rafflecopter giveaway

ARC Review of BITTERBLUE by Kristin Cashore

Just yesterday I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of Bitterblue, which is due out in May, and I stayed up until 3 a.m. reading half of it and then finished it when I woke up...a few hours ago. :-) I'm sorry for not doing a video review, but at the moment, my hair is wet and I'm trying to function without coffee.

Y'all are lucky I'm capable of typing coherently... On to the review!

Bitterblue is the sequel to Graceling and a companion to Fire, both wonderful novels by Kristin Cashore.

Here is the Goodreads summary:

Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea.  

But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck’s reign, and forget anything bad ever happened.  

But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle—disguised and alone—to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.  

Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck’s reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn’t yet identified, holds a key to her heart.

As a fan of Cashore's work and her previous novels, I salivated at the thought that I was getting to read her next novel early. Sometimes I wonder at my priorities. Anyway, despite missing a few key parts as ARC's are wont to do (no maps, booooooo), I came away from my contact with the kingdom of Monsea with a new appreciation for the depth of the Graced world.

I'm not sure if Bitterblue is my favorite The Seven Kingdoms novel--I have a soft spot for Fire--but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Cashore is a wizard with description and creates a world rife with interesting characters and intriguing mysteries.

One of the most important aspects of all of Cashore's books, in my opinion, is the unflinching approach she takes to difficult subjects. The entire kingdom of Monsea has undergone 35 years of hardship and torture at the hands of King Leck (one of the worst villains I've ever hated), and Bitterblue has to come into her own as a queen of a confused and healing people. It isn't easy and, as a reader, I felt like I was suffering from the same type of post traumatic Leck disorder as everyone within the pages.

There is intrigue, murder, puzzles, love, but most of all, there is hope. Cashore doesn't believe in overly sappy endings, and I'm glad. Bitterblue's story is better without that. Watching the characters grow and explore what it means to heal is a great gift. It's a bonus that the fantasy world is amazing as well.

I give Bitterblue 4 out of 5 stars. So, when May comes around, I hope y'all pop on over to your local bookstore and snag a copy. I guarantee you'll find something worthwhile between the pages.

As a token of my gratitude for y'all being amazing blog friends, I'm going to give away my ARC of Bitterblue in true blog fashion.

Rules:
Simply comment on this post for one entry.

And spread the news about the giveaway any way you feel necessary! Tweet, blog, Facebook, etc. Leave the direct link in your comment and I'll give you an extra entry!

I'm going to give y'all approximately 24 hours to enter and then I'll put your names in random.org and draw a winner!

Now, if you're not in the United States, I'm sorry, but I will not be able to send it to you. :( I'm only a poor college student so I hope you'll understand. Anyone in the U.S. and Canada is welcome to try their hand at the game. I think my pocketbook can stretch that far.

Also, please be sure to leave me some way of getting in touch with you in case you do win. An email address would be perfect.

Until next time...