Attention! This is the third book of the Mara Dyer trilogy,
so if you haven’t read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and The Evolution of Mara Dyer yet and don’t want to know spoilers, don’t read this post!

Check out quotes of my reviews for this trilogy:

“I have to confess The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer left me speechless. After reading so many books in the past few years, it’s difficult not to guess what is going to happen through a story, but Michenlle Hodkin’s debut novel is so awesome that you have no idea how it’s going to end. You try to guess, but it’s like you’re as clueless as Mara during the whole time. And the ending is really good, it leaves you leaning for more.” — The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer

“If The Unbecoming left me speechless, The Evolution doubled that. I simply could not see any of the turns that came, page after page, and I have no word better than brilliant to define them!” — The Evolution of Mara Dyer

You can tell how excited I am about this book simply by the fact that I’m doing an Is it out yet? and we don’t even have a summary for it yet!

The Evolution of Mara Dyer was the best book I read last year, and I have high expectations that The Revolution of Mara Dyer will be my best reading of 2013. I’m dying to find out how this story ends—well, actually how it got to the beginning of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, when Mara starts telling us her story.

And now for the good news: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is set to be released in Brazil in July! Freaking finally! The Brazilian publisher has the publishing rights since the book was released here in the US, but only now they’re planning on releasing it there. I just can’t wait to have more people to freak out with me about this amazing story!

Mara Dyer #3

Author: Michelle Hodkin
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre(s): Young adult, Paranormal
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: October 22, 2013
Pages: TBD

How it’s going to work: We’ll post an excerpt of the book,
without spoilers, and we’ll make a little note about our reading,
with an expected publication date for the review, if any.

Our book for today’s Coming up next… is Sarah Ockler’s The Book of Broken Hearts. The book will break your heart, exactly in the same way it has been breaking ours while reading. A tale as much about love as about family, that will let you tired from crying and seeing beauty in pain, but in the end will be completely worth it.

There’s an excerpt below:

“And in that moment, I felt alive. Whole. Protected from the ravages of time and completely immune to its passing.

Nothing about this could ever end in tears.“

Our review of The Book of Broken Hearts should be up until the end of the month.

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk’s home life, they’d send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom’s freedom and her own happiness. That’s how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn’t want her and going to a school that doesn’t understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn’t get her, but does….

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can’t tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn’t be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won’t let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all.

This books has such a cliché beginning, but it blows us away anyway! And, in a way, we think that’s a power that Katie’s writing has over us… It doesn’t matter if she has the most original idea ever or gets the biggest cliché (in this case, dares) to make a plot: she’ll nail it.

We met Beth in Pushing the Limits, but in this new book we get to see what life really is for her. She is the kind of girl who lives in fear, in the what if: what could happen to her if people discovered how crazy her mother was. This what if is what makes her always cover every stunt that the mother pulls. But when a really bad one puts Beth in jail, it’s time for a change. And this change comes in the figure of uncle Scott, someone who finally can be the kind of parent that Beth needs in her life!

In her new life, Beth crosses paths with Ryan, a good boy who is always making bets and taking dares. So what will happen when Ryan decides to take a dare on Beth? Could it be the beginning of a healing process or the biggest fall of Beth’s life?

Just like Pushing the Limits, Dare You To is also an emotional mess, and we loved it even more in some aspects: first, we really think Katie’s writing has grown in this book. She gets us with her narrative, not just with her characters. While Pushing the Limits was all about the love for Noah and Echo and the feelings between them, this book is about more fragile bounds, and this takes time to develop in the narrative. But Katie was capable of it.

The complexity in this one is that we were in love with Noah and Echo, others characters in the same world Beth lives. So we have to tell you the truth: sometimes, Guta wanted to switch back completely to Pushing the Limits‘ scenarios, and this made Beth and Ryan story less appealing for her.

It’s still a touching book with very well written characters. But maybe Guta lives in an utopia and want a world made of Noahs. She still can dream, right? And Ryan gets close, being second in her line!

Maeva, however, enjoyed Dare You To more than Pushing the Limits. Although she usually has a soft spot for the bad guys like Noah, Ryan won her heart over and over again. She wanted to kick his dad so hard for everything he does to his kids, and slap the reality out of his mom. It was painful to read about that disfunctional family, probably because that’s something too close to Maeva’s heart.

Pushing the Limits #2

Author: Katie McGarry
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre(s): New Adult, Romance
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication date: May 28, 2013
Pages: 462
Purchase:

Rating:

So, please, this is the time to help me out! What should I review next? The 4 books choosen by you guys will be reviewed between May 15th and June 15th!

Attention! This is the third book of the Divergent series,
so if you haven’t read the series, Divergent and Insurgent
yet and don’t want to know spoilers, don’t read this post!

One choice will define you.

What if your whole world was a lie?

What if a single revelation—like a single choice—changed everything?

What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected?

The explosive conclusion to Veronica Roth’s #1 New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy reveals the secrets of the dystopian world that has captivated millions of readers in Divergent and Insurgent.

Check some quotes of Maeva’s reviews of this series:

“I couldn’t put the book down, for the following 5 hours I was hooked on this story.” — Divergent

“It’s highly addicting and you are going to suffer at the end of it—yes, I have to be honest with you, there’s a cliffhanger that’s going to make you wish it was 2013 already.” — Insurgent

Since I put Insurgent down, I wanted to read the third book in this series! The second book was a rollercoaster ride, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe when I finished it. So, please, get here Allegiant, as I need to put some air in my lungs again!

The title for this book was recently released, and now I’m just waiting for the cover! And then, obviously, the book. How fast can October get here?

Divergent #3

Author: Veronica Roth
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre(s): Young Adult, Dystopian Future, Thriller
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: October 22, 2013
Pages: 496
Purchase:

Murphy’s favorite books is a post to talk about a book or series that we gave up on reading. If you like the idea, please, feel free to share your Murphy’s favorite books too.

Important: This post shows our opinion, and our opinion only. We would like to note that people can (and probably will) like these books for the same reasons we didn’t like it. It’s not a flame, we don’t have the intention of bad-mouth the author or their books. It’s a review, but it is not under the Reviews category because we couldn’t finish reading or took a long time to do it. Sometimes a book that one of us liked can be featured here because the other didn’t like it. Again: it is just our opinion.

Caleb is a man with a singular interest in revenge. Kidnapped as a young boy and sold into slavery by a power-hungry mobster, he has thought of nothing but vengeance. For twelve years he has immersed himself in the world of pleasure slaves searching for the one man he holds ultimately responsible. Finally, the architect of his suffering has emerged with a new identity, but not a new nature. If Caleb is to get close enough to strike, he must become the very thing he abhors and kidnap a beautiful girl to train her to be all that he once was.

Eighteen-year-old Olivia Ruiz has just woken up in a strange place. Blindfolded and bound, there is only a calm male voice to welcome her. His name is Caleb, though he demands to be called Master. Olivia is young, beautiful, naïve and willful to a fault. She has a dark sensuality that cannot be hidden or denied, though she tries to accomplish both. Although she is frightened by the strong, sadistic, and arrogant man who holds her prisoner, what keeps Olivia awake in the dark is her unwelcome attraction to him.

I found out about this book while reading answers of other blogs for a Follow & Feature question. I can’t remember exactly what was the question, but I do remember reading a lot of bloggers saying good things about it, so I decided to give it a try. I wish I hadn’t.

Captive in the Dark felt like an attempt to make a new and more explicit Fifty Shades of Grey. We have yet to review EL James’s trilogy here on Murphy’s Library, but let me tell you: we didn’t like it. And I didn’t like what I saw on Captive in the Dark either.

While reading this book I thought that Roberts came up with a plot just to have an excuse to write sex scenes, and failed while doing so. As one of the reviewers on Amazon said, “This book has no idea what it’s trying to be.” Although I’ve seen a lot of people saying they liked the way the characters were built, I didn’t. In no way I could connect with either Caleb nor Olivia, they felt too unreal, the author tried to develop the characters with dialogues that just bored me and in my opinion don’t really take the reader anywhere.

I skipt a lot of scenes while trying to read it, until I simply gave up and decided to jump to the last chapter. Let me tell you: this was a waste of my time. This book is about rape, kidnapping, torture, and I just can’t understand how so many people can love this story. It’s disturbing how so many people can enjoy a story about human traffic that they say is a romance.

The Dark Duet #1

Author: CJ Roberts
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre(s): Erotic Fiction
Publisher: Neurotica Books
Publication date: August 12, 2011
Pages: 253
Purchase:

Guta:

Sarah, Richelle and a really cute one by Jojo Moyes. What else can I wish?

For review:

• The Book of Broken Hearts, Sarah Ockler (ebook)
• Gabriel’s Inferno, Sylvain Reynard — Review
• Gameboard of the Gods, Richelle Mead (ebook)
• Me Before You, Jojo Moyes — Review

Purchased:

• I’ve Got Your Number, Sophie Kinsella
• Maid for Billionaire, Ruth Cardello
• That Summer, Sarah Dessen

Maeva:

Got 2 digital ARCs that I was really looking forward to reading!

For review:

• Gameboard of the Gods, Richelle Mead (ebook)
• The Book of Broken Hearts, Sarah Ockler (ebook)

And what about you, what did you get this week? Don’t forget to tell us!

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn’t know is she’s about to lose her job or that knowing what’s coming is what keeps her sane.
Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he’s going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn’t know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they’re going to change the other for all time.

I must be the only person in the world that thought this books was cute! Sure, it has an absurd amount of drama, sadness and suffering. But under all of this, it’s a cute story about being able and wanting to live. And Jojo Moyes was capable of passing this through her book with easy.

Meet Will. Will has the will to live; he knows what is good in life and what every day can offers to you. But he isn’t capable of living the way he wants anymore: ever since an accident, Will is paralyzed from the neck down. Now, he is just a soul, his shell is broken and he can’t do what he loves anymore.

Lou Clark is the opposite: she is a shell. Her soul and her will to live seems to be lost somewhere, maybe in the need to be the caretaker of her family, needing to always put her needs last. When Lou loses her job and is offered the position as a companion for Will, to try and keep him from suicide, they both start to learn from each other. Will puts on Lou his need to live, showing her how to enjoy life and really be alive. And Lou tries to show Will that his life didn’t end, there’s still color in the world.

The journey between them is amazing to read and… Yes, it’s cute. I laughed a lot, learned a lot and, sometimes, cried to. It’s amazing to see how similar they are, even if they are put as opposites all the time. Me Before You was a fast reading, full of lessons and well put phrases.

The ending is a little sad, but goes exactly with what this book was about, and that’s why, maybe, that I don’t find this story so dramatic as some other people out there. This book had a purpose, and the ending was perfect for its purpose. Jojo Moyes proved with Lou and Will story that love happens in many ways, in many circumstances, for many reasons… And she knows how to write it!

Author: Jojo Moyes
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Genre(s): Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Publication date: January 5th, 2012
Pages: 482
Purchase:

Rating:

Enigmatic and sexy, Professor Gabriel Emerson is a well respected Dante specialist by day, but by night he devotes himself to an uninhibited life of pleasure. He uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past and consumed by the profound belief that he is beyond all hope of redemption.

When the sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrolls as his graduate student, his attraction and mysterious connection to her not only jeopardizes his career, but sends him on a journey in which his past and his present collide. An intriguing and sinful exploration of seduction, forbidden love and redemption, “Gabriel’s Inferno” is a captivating and wildly passionate tale of one man’s escape from his own personal hell as he tries to earn the impossible…forgiveness and love.

This book is such a tease. The end.

I started reading Gabriel’s Inferno knowing that I would have to put in my mind that this wasn’t exactly my kind of reading, but that I should at least try one of these erotica books with an open mind, a thing I didn’t do with Mr. Grey and his blushing bride.

The book tells us the tale of a professor who find himself in awe of a beautiful blushing and innocent student, who seems to have every single cell of her body fitting a submissive person. The book has its appeal, mainly because everyone got a crush in a professor in our lifetime, and the historical aspects and the geeky side of this books was truly well written.

But the romance? Oh no. First, it was such a cliché love story. The damaged one, mysterious one, falling in love with a lamb. Oh oh, where did we read it before? And it was such a tease: Emerson spent 95% of this book telling Julia and us what he would do with her when he had the chance. And then he did nothing he told her he would!

It’s not that I was expecting sex all the time, but, for God’s sake! This is an erotica book, please, deliver it!

In the end, what I can tell about my experience reading Gabriel’s Inferno is: this is a well written book, really! I was even surprised by the narrative. But its flaws lay exactly in the same place as every single erotica book I’ve been reading or hearing about… It’s the same idea, the same depressed characters, the same idea of a mysterious past, the same idea about a man just needing to be loved so he can overcome his problems and past, the same female main character who spent the book promising to be more deep than what we are reading about, the same reasons and kind of sexual relationship. And that bothers me because I think, from the outside, that’s not what those kinds of relationships are about.

But even if I put a blind eye to all of it, this book was just disappointing. Well written, but not well thought, maybe. The upside? It’s definitely better than Christian Grey!

Author: Sylvain Reynard
Country: United States
Language: English
Genre(s): Erotica, Adult Fiction
Publisher: Omnific Publishing
Publication date: April 4th, 2011
Pages: 545
Purchase:

Rating:

Reading:
Guta: Me before You, Jojo Moyes
Maeva: The Book of Broken Hearts, Sarah Ockler

I read this month:

Guta:
• The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Jennifer E. Smith
• Sea Fever, Sarah Mason
• Pandemonium, Lauren Oliver
• Gabriel’s Inferno, Sylvain Reynard
• 15 books for work

Maeva:

• The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
• Dare You To, Katie McGarry

We reviewed this month:

Guta:
• Into the Darkest Corner, Elizabeth Haynes
• The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Jennifer E. Smith
• Sirensong, Jenna Black
• Pandemonium, Lauren Oliver
• Thoughtless, S.C. Stephens

Maeva:

• The Throne of Fire, Rick Riordan
• Deadlands, Lily Herne
• Pure, Julianna Baggott
• The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Guta and Maeva:

• The Eternity Cure, Julie Kagawa
• Shadowspell, Jenna Black

Guest Review:

• The Lucky One, Nicholas Sparks

Best read of the month:
Guta: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Jennifer E. Smith
Maeva: Dare You To, Katie McGarry

Best review of the month written by the other:
Guta: The Throne of Fire, Rick Riordan, I’ve been waiting to see what Maeva thought of this one!
Maeva: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, I liked it so much that I actually purchased the book to read it too!

Last purchase:
Guta: I’ve got your number, by Sophie Kinsella.
Maeva: I think it was The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight.

Quote:
Guta: “It’s one thing to run away when someone’s chasing you. It’s entirely another to be running all alone.” — The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Jennifer E. Smith
Maeva: “This overwhelming, encompassing feeling is love. It’s not perfect and it’s messy as hell. And it’s exactly what I need.” — Dare You To, Katie McGarry

I’m on mood for:
Guta: More time! I don’t have time to see my friends anymore! ;(
Maeva: I’m dying to begin a new project, and with not a lot of energy to keep up with an old one. Help!