"This Dark Endeavor (The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein)" by Kenneth Oppell

"Victor and Konrad are the twin brothers Frankenstein. They are nearly inseparable. Growing up, their lives are filled with imaginary adventures...until the day their adventures turn all too real.
They stumble upon The Dark Library, and secret books of alchemy and ancient remedies are discovered. Father forbids that they ever enter the room again, but this only piques Victor's curiosity more. When Konrad falls gravely ill, Victor is not satisfied with the various doctors his parents have called in to help. He is drawn back to The Dark Library where he uncovers an ancient formula for the Elixir of Life. With their friend Elizabeth, Henry and Victor immediately set out to find assistance from a man who was once known for his alchemical works to help create the formula.
Determination and the unthinkable outcome of losing his brother spur Victor on in the quest for the three ingredients that will save Konrad's life. After scaling the highest trees in the Strumwald, diving into the deepest lake caves, and sacrificing one’s own body part, the three fearless friends risk their lives to save another."-goodreads

Okay, if any of you ever saw my review of "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, you know that I liked it, but also was maybe a little bit underwhelmed after my expectations from the Hollywood portrayal of the Frankenstein monster (yes I realize this is absolutely *blasphemous*). I'm actually re-reading it right now, and appreciating it a lot more. (Give me a break, it was one of the first Gothic 19th century novels I'd read, and it was a lot to take in!). 

I wasn't at all sure what to expect from this book but I loved it! It was so good. The portrayal of young Victor Frankenstein to show the childhood that isn't talked about in Frankenstein was epic. It showed us some of the events that could've lead to the famous Dr. Frankenstein and his *slightly* twisted ways. From reading Frankenstein, I could totally believe that this is what his adolescence would've been like; the culmination of 'teenage-angst', bitterness, and tragedy to warp his future. Victor's character was well developed and the voice of the novel was great. The tension between Victor and Elizabeth (and the different kind between Victor and Konrad) was remarkable.  It did move a bit slow for me at times but so did "Frankenstein", and many other books that I end up liking. The mystery and misadventures were daring and cool to read of, and it was interesting to draw parallels to what occurs in the original novel in Victor's adult life. Also, one might think that "This Dark Endeavor" would be cliche or cheese-y, another one of those unoriginal 'teenage monster' stories but it was much more.

I also looked up the book because I wanted to know if there would be a sequel, which I would be very interested in if that's possible or maybe it would be too much, but anyway I saw that it's going to be made into a movie which would be amazing because I could totally see this book as a movie-- super creepy. Also, for the bottom line of random notes, look at the cover!! So eerie and dark, absolutely perfect for the book! 
Thank you to Simon&Schuster for giving me the opportunity to review this book. Reader's Note: As usual, this in no way swayed my opinion.

"Possess" by Gretchen McNeil

August 23rd, 2011

"Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her mom, by the cute son of a local police sergeant, and by the eerie voices she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Unfortunately for Bridget, it turns out the voices are demons – and Bridget has the rare ability to banish them back to whatever hell they came from.
Terrified to tell people about her new power, Bridget confides in a local priest who enlists her help in increasingly dangerous cases of demonic possession. But just as she is starting to come to terms with her new power, Bridget receives a startling message from one of the demons. Now Bridget must unlock the secret to the demons' plan before someone close to her winds up dead – or worse, the human vessel of a demon king."-goodreads

The genre that is paranormal YA is normally dominated by vampires, faeries, witches, angels, and ghosts, so Possess is a refreshing book. Its paranormal element is possessions by demons. As in people being possessed, and a lead character who goes to catholic school and has special exorcism talents. (That part sounded lame. But trust me-- Possess is anything other than lame!) 

Suffice to say, Possess is not your average paranormal book. But what else is awesome about it? Bridget is a really likeable and easy-to-relate-to character; not overly sarcastic or smart or anything, she just seems normal. She's an outcast at her catholic school as she's never been very popular or very good at making friends-- but that doesn't matter, she's okay with the friends she has. She has faced the tragedy of her father's death and will only find more as the book progresses, but the book was emotional without being overly heavy and Bridget wasn't a completely depressed character all the time. I'm a big fan of Matt, and Bridget's younger brother Sammy as well, he was cute.

Possess was a perfect combination of a good characters, quickly progressing and mysterious plot, extreme creepiness, and suspense. It was SO creepy. I read most of it late at night and that was kind of a mistake-- much jumping at every small noise ensued. I felt the voice held a lot of Bridget's personality for being in third person, with little quips of her sarcasm inserted after some situations; simple things like 'awesome' near the end of a scary situation, which occasionally added light and necessary humor. If you like creepy books and don't want your average paranormal book, I highly suggest you pick up Possess when it comes out; it's all kinds of awesome!
ARC received through review program at my awesome library. Thank you!

"Nevermore" by Kelly Creagh

"At once an homage to one of America's greatest writers and a page-turning psychological mystery that is equal parts horror, humor, and romance, NEVERMORE is the story of Varen -- a Poe-fan and goth -- and Isobel -- a cheerleader and unlikely heroine. When a Lit. project pairs the two together, Isobel finds herself steadily swept into Varen's world, one that he has created in his notebook and in his mind, one where the terrifying stories of Edgar Allan Poe come to life. Isobel slowly learns that dreams can be much more powerful than she'd ever expected, and that pain and despair come in all sorts of shades. As labels of "goth" and "cheerleader" fade away, she sees more in Varen than a tall, pale outcast, and a consuming romance is braced against the ever-clearer horror that the most terrifying realities are those within our own minds.
When Isobel has a single chance to rescue Varen from the shadows of his own nightmares, will she be able to save him -- and herself?"-goodreads

I am a Poe enthusiast! I have been meaning to read this book for quite a while because of that. Several people recommended this book to me because I like the Edgar Allan Poe stuff I've read, as in, really like it! Thus, I was extremely excited to read Nevermore. I was not disappointed by the Poe element at all-- there were quotes, it was a totally gothic book, they talked about Poe, the project was on Poe, and you know, it turned out everything had more to do with Poe than it seemed. *queue the spooky music*

This is a very LONG book. It's over 500 pages. That doesn't deter me, I don't care about the length of a book as long as it's a good book. This was a good book. It wasn't the BEST BOOK EVER (which I kind of hoped it would be...). It was a good book. I do think it could've been shorter--I felt like it spent a lot of time building up to what was going to happen, and then when stuff actually started happening, it felt kind of rushed (which might've just been the contrast of the pace moving rather slowly and then all of  a sudden we were getting places, figuring things out, etc...).

I liked Varen as a character... I wasn't a huge fan of Isabel. She kind of reminded me of a certain other Bella that is part of a popular YA series... and not in a very good way. That and I just never really connected with her as a character, I never really felt any sympathy or otherwise for her.

I did like how the story unfolded, the Poe element, and the writing was gothic and beautiful. It was awesomely psychological and creepy. I'll definitely be picking up the sequel when it comes out next year (I thought it was supposed to be a stand-alone, but BAM, CLIFFHANGER.) but it just wasn't overall my thing. But if you enjoy gothic types of books, Edgar Allan Poe, paranormal, and aren't afraid of a big book-- give it a try, you might think it's the best book ever. :)

"Shadowed Summer" by Saundra Mitchell

"Iris is ready for another hot, routine summer in her small Louisiana town, hanging around the Red Stripe grocery with her best friend, Collette, and traipsing through the cemetery telling each other spooky stories and pretending to cast spells. Except this summer, Iris doesn’t have to make up a story. This summer, one falls right in her lap.
Years ago, before Iris was born, a local boy named Elijah Landry disappeared. All that remained of him were whispers and hushed gossip in the church pews. Until this summer. A ghost begins to haunt Iris, and she’s certain it’s the ghost of Elijah. What really happened to him? And why, of all people, has he chosen Iris to come back to?"-goodreads


First things first: This book was refreshing! Why? Because it was good, but it was a standalone. I felt satisfied with how it wrapped up, which I often don't with standalone books, without having to read a sequel to get the whole story! Don't get me wrong. I like series of books, however, I don't appreciate it when EVERY book is a series-- especially those times when you don't even know it is/will be one. 


Saundra Mitchell's writing. Ohmygosh. I read the Vespertine and really liked the story but my favorite part was Mrs. Mitchell's writing style. It's unique, rather poetic, and rather visual. Shadowed Summer is super creepy and gothic, emphasized by her writing. 


The whole thing was creepy, really Iris and Colette's pretending to be witches gone wrong, when something ACTUALLY happens and there's an actual ghost. Not a quiet ghost either, this ghost had a story to tell and a mystery to be solved. The whole thing wraps up in a way you wouldn't expect; as the story goes on, Colette and Iris think they know what happened, and the reader thinks they do too; but then it's not what you expect!


If you want a really creepy gothic type of book that's written well and is a relatively short STAND ALONE read, then check out Shadowed Summer.

"Beautiful Darkness" (Caster Chronicles, #2) by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

"Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.
Sometimes life-ending.
Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems."-goodreads
Remember that time I wrote a review in which I was totally crazy about a Paranormal/Contemporary/Historical book called Beautiful Creatures? This is the sequel to that book and I loved it just as much!

The Paranormal/Historical/Contemporary elements are back and all there. The book is still written in a way that captivates you and makes you really see what is going on, at times rather poetic. The story is still fascinating. It continues to surprise with twists that you can't forsee no matter how hard you try. It's still a rather gothic novel. It was great!

There's always those times where I'm disappointed with the sequel as compared to the first book, but this wasn't a let down. Beautiful Creatures and Beautiful Darkness both start out rather slow-- even though it's good, it's slow-- but it's good that way. It doesn't take away for me. It just builds on and prepares you for the very complicated but very good things to come. It's a long book just like the first at about 500 pages, however, it's 500 pages of greatness. The way the world of Casters and the mortal world in Gaitlin combine in these books is seamless. The book was more emotional than the last, because of some very traumatic experiences going on and the ones that went on in Beautiful Creatures (which I can't talk about without ruining the whole thing).

I can't wait for the third in the series of the Caster Chronicles to come out, Beautiful Chaos in (fittingly) October! I'm sure there are more great things to coming yet in this series.

"The Vespertine" by Saundra Mitchell

"It’s the summer of 1889, and Amelia van den Broek is new to Baltimore and eager to take in all the pleasures the city has to offer. But her gaiety is interrupted by disturbing, dreamlike visions she has only at sunset—visions that offer glimpses of the future. Soon, friends and strangers alike call on Amelia to hear her prophecies. However, a forbidden romance with Nathaniel, an artist, threatens the new life Amelia is building in Baltimore. This enigmatic young man is keeping secrets of his own—still, Amelia finds herself irrepressibly drawn to him.
When one of her darkest visions comes to pass, Amelia’s world is thrown into chaos. And those around her begin to wonder if she’s not the seer of dark portents, but the cause."-goodreads

I've read lot's of Paranormal books, and many Historical books. Those are basically my two favorite sub-genres of YA, so you can probably imagine that when I found out about a beautifully written, pretty covered book by the name of The Vespertine, I was very excited by the prospect.

I was NOT disappointed at all. It was amazing, just like everyone kept telling me it would be. It was soooo beautifully written, I felt like I was in the 1800s with Amelia and really involved in the story, and the writing just flowed nice and painted a brilliant picture of what was going on at all times. I really didn't think that Paranormal could flow very well for me in the 1800s, because I'd just never read anything like that, but I was proved wrong.


Amelia's unpreventable glimpses into the future and their unpredictable, usually messy consequences were filled with lots of different emotions. Just the way she and Zora handled her ability and going around to people and using it with no worries at first... it was very interesting. Amelia and Zora's relationship was particularly interesting because their friendship was boring at first but then they came to be kind of rebels together. Well, as close to rebelling for a young lady as you could be in that period, I suppose. It was funny.


Zora and Amelia's friendship leads me to their dances and their gentlemen. Zora and Thomas were cute. And of course then there's Amelia's love, Nathaniel. It was interesting, him being a fourteenth and socially unacceptable because he's an ARTIST. A deep starving artist, right? Yeah. The twist about what he actually was, wasn't something that I expected and that was really good.


Overall, The Vespertine was an amazing story and I can't wait for the sequel! I can't wait to read more of Saundra Mitchel's writing and I'm eager to pick up Shadowed Summer, a horror novel that she released before The Vespertine. If you like historical stuff from the 1800s, paranormal elements, and a 'forbidden' romance because the guy is an artist, you'll love the Vespertine; because it was amazing.

"Sapphique" by Catherine Fisher

Note: I'm going to try and make this review as spoiler free as possible! If you haven't read "Incarceron" though, you might just want to check out that (admittedly to short to do it justice, but I just... couldn't put my thoughts into words for it properly) review!
"Finn has escaped from the terrible living Prison of Incarceron, but its memory torments him, because his brother Keiro is still inside. Outside, Claudia insists he must be king, but Finn doubts even his own identity. Is he the lost prince Giles? Or are his memories no more than another construct of his imprisonment? And can you be free if your friends are still captive? Can you be free if your world is frozen in time? Can you be free if you don't even know who you are? Inside Incarceron, has the crazy sorcerer Rix really found the Glove of Sapphique, the only man the Prison ever loved. Sapphique, whose image fires Incarceron with the desire to escape its own nature. If Keiro steals the glove, will he bring destruction to the world? Inside. Outside. All seeking freedom. Like Sapphique." -goodreads

I think that Sapphique was an awesome sequel to Incarceron. It had all of the my favorite elements of Incarceron- the characters, the complicated but very enjoyable plot twists, the mysterious worlds of the Realm and Incarceron, and the amazing writing by Catherine Fisher. At first I was weary about just one more book coming out after Incarceron- I was convinced that there had to be more- it just seemed too complicated to fit into two books. The incredibly broad (Or should I say small?) world created by Fisher didn't seem like it could be contained by just two books. All of my questions could not possibly be answered!

All of my questions were NOT answered, and the world could NOT be contained in two books. Did I care? No. The questions I still had at the end of the book and the world that just didn't seem sealed properly into the two books were not a bad thing, I thought they were the best way to end it. The way it ended you wondered what the characters were going to do about the state of the world, and you wondered what the world was going to be like, but in a good way. Maybe you'd wish for an answer, but at the same time it was wonderful, perfect for your own speculation and imagination to come up with the answers.

I liked the way all the characters turned out and the way it was decided who Prince Giles was, by which there wasn't really a *true* answer, I thought that was great in the same kind of way that you just had to decide for yourself. Jared. JARED! AT THE END! That was awesome. I can't say anymore about that, or I'll spoil everything. Everything about Sapphique and the ending. That was just really cool. I know I sound cryptic but you have to read them and find out!

If you like the way this sounds you should really check out Incarceron and if you have, then you HAVE to read Sapphique!

"Those That Wake" by Jesse Karp

March 21st, 2011
"New York City’s spirit has been crushed. People walk the streets with their heads down, withdrawing from one another and into the cold comfort of technology. Teenagers Mal and Laura have grown up in this reality. They’ve never met. Seemingly, they never will. But on the same day Mal learns his brother has disappeared, Laura discovers her parents have forgotten her. Both begin a search for their families that leads them to the same truth: someone or something has wiped the teens from the memories of every person they have ever known. Thrown together, Mal and Laura must find common ground as they attempt to reclaim their pasts." -goodreads

This book was another interesting dystopia (can you tell that Dystopias are definitely the next vampire craze? and also that I kind of love them?). This one, rather then being directly dictated what to do by a force like The Capitol in The Hunger Games or the society in Matched, the residents of New York are kind of letting themselves be controlled by their technology. That concept was a bit frightening, probably because people really can be like that- absorbed by their smartphones or the television when the people and interactions you should be involved with are right in front of you. I've experienced people doing things like that, just as I probably have before. So some of the elements in Those That Wake really weren't that far off.

What else? The book is rather dark and grim, the tone especially, all the way through (almost gothic!). I've read reviews from people that didn't like this and thought it took away from the book and while I agree that it was a bit of a tedious tone, the entire time, I also realize that's how the story was. It wasn't happy and exciting, it was suspenseful and grim. I liked the main characters (Mal and Laura). I enjoyed the story over all. 

ARC through program at my awesome library. Thank you!

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

If man has two sides- a good side and an evil side- then is it possible to separate them to create a single personality? That is the question that is faced in Robert Louis Stevenson’s book The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Dr. Jekyll is a respectable, honorable man. Mr. Hyde is a disgusting, evil person. “[The] few who could describe him differed widely, as common observers will. Only on one point were they agreed; and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.” as Stevenson writes.

The book is narrated by an old friend of Dr. Jekyll’s, a lawyer named Mr. Utterson. Over the course of the few years covered in the book, Mr. Utterson discovers the disturbing secret behind Mr. Hyde.

In The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, I think the author is trying to express the idea that all people have a capacity for both extreme good and extreme evil, as expressed in this passage. “If each, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.”

One part of this book that I found particularly interesting was the characters. Each and every character was developed, interesting, and original, whether or not they remained throughout the entire book, like Mr. Utterson, or appeared only in two paragraphs, such as this landlady. “An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent.” The characters each had their own strengths, weaknesses, and goals. Even without a good plot, the characters alone would have convinced me to read the book.

This book was very interesting to me, as it raised questions that I think a lot of people have thought of before. What if you could separate the parts of your personality? What would life be like then? What challenges would you face? Rewards? Dangers? Would it be a good thing? Or like in this book, an extremely dangerous thing? Or both?

Thanks in part to the questions, part to the interesting plot twists, and in part again to the characters, this book has to be one of my favorite reads. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy dark gothic novels.