starkiwi's reviews
306 reviews

I absolutely love this book. It is one of my favorites. Most people say this is one of those “love it” or “hate it” kind of books, but I cannot see how anyone wouldn’t like this. City of Bones is one of the top rate fantasy books, and while it takes a little while to get attached and to the action, it is worth the wait of a few chapters. Once you do get to the action you are automatically hooked. Especially when a hot, mysterious guy, whom no one else can see, named Jace, comes into the plot line.
Cassandra explores an amazing idea in this book and applies it too our own world. This idea might be one of the reasons why I loved this book so much. It makes you ask questions no one knows the answer to, and will make you question all that you know. I have never read nor looked at a book, especially fantasy, the same way again ever since I read this series. DON’T BE AFRAID. Im sorry if I scared you off there. This book really is amazing, and when you see things in a new way it is not bad, but good. It is like you feel like you have been asleep your whole life and now your eyes have opened up to this whole new world, even though it is the same world. If you don’t want to read it now because I have told you this, you loss. I promise you wont regret reading this book.
While the story is about finding out who you are and who you want to become, it is easy to look past that and just see the struggle the characters go through, in case you don’t like the flaw, aha moment, character realization kinda thing. However, if you do then the characters do show a tremendous amount of growth throughout the book. This is the perfect book/series for almost anyone. There is a lot of everything. Fantasy, YA, adventure, romance, supernatural, mystery, and fiction. Yet, “all the stories are true.”

This book was not a very good book, at all. I read this for book club and we did not have anything to talk about except how much, and why, we did not like the book. I was a very uneventful discussion and we were all disappointed by the way it came out. This book was just not for any of us. You could tell it was supposed to be a light and fluffy romance. Also a bit silly. And it seeming like they were trying to hard to make it so.
The swearing was overused. Normally I don’t mind books with some swearing, I actually kind of enjoy it at times. However, this book just didn’t use it correctly. At first it seemed ok, but afterward it got annoying. No one thinks or talks with that much swearing, it was unrealistic. It was almost like the authors were trying to make a word count, and said ‘hey lets throw in a bunch of swearing to make the book longer’. Neither was it written for someone who reads a lot. It was a book you really cant go to deep into or try to understand at a higher level because there is no level up there. It only makes the book more confusing.
And that is what we had tried to do. It didn’t work out. (I don’t even want to talk about this book anymore) But, even after reading my review and you still want to read it, go ahead. Let it not be said, though, that I didn’t warn you.

I was very surprised at how much I liked this book. I did not think I would at first. It just did not seem like the type of book I really like. As well as the fact that I had been reading realistic fiction for a while and I was hoping to get back to some fantasy or dystopian. This book was just so powerful it captured my attention straight away.
I knew going into this that this was a book about modern-day slavery and that this was actually happening in real life. Once I started reading I really felt how awful it was that this was going on somewhere in the world. The fact kinda hit me like a wave. Tara Sullivan defiantly met her purpose with giving us this information. This book really makes you care, even if you didn’t go into the book expecting to get anything out of it. In her writing you could see that she cared and it made you want to care as well.
This book has basically changed my life. I rarely eat chocolate unless I can see that it wasn’t made with slaves. I don’t know why, but this book presented this issue to me and I took it. I really didn’t mean to. It just jumped at me and soon became a very important thing in my mind. That just goes to show how amazing and powerful this book was. It was amazing.

4.5 stars to be exact, but I still loved this book so let's round up. I know people say not to but I still judge a book by its cover and it's description. In this book I was unsure because it mostly revolved around video games, and I'm not that much of a gamer. However I was pleasantly surprised by how wonderful this book was. It contained a lot of suspense much similar to the book Nerve by Jeanne Ryan. Even if you didn't like that book I would still highly recommend reading this one. I felt it contains everything history, dystopian, fiction, romance, suspense, and of course an epic final battle. (We all know every book has to have).

The first book was ok. I didn’t feel like it really needed a continuation. But it needed to go along with the classic dystopian trilogy. The first book had most of that, and it very well could have ended there. The second book was much less exiting than the first.
The characters seemed to have more problems. I don’t really like when the problems become little things about their life that they would like changed. It gets annoying when the characters keep talking about it. It also gets annoying when they fall for some of the most obvious tricks. This is also going with the classic dystopian criteria. You know they shouldn’t do it, and they have dropped hints thought their trick - in front of the characters even.
Maybe its just me getting sick of the classic dystopian, but that sums up the main reasons of why I didn’t like this series. If you have not discovered classic dystopian you might actually think that this was a pretty good series. Maybe if you are more of an inexperienced reader to this genre or books as well.

I was trying to get back into the dystopian genre with this book. I picked a good one, it is certainly dystopian. I fits all of the classic dystopian criteria. Which, if i wanted to get back into it, I guess I kinda asked for. However, that is starting to get old for me.
This book did explore a new idea I felt dystopian books have not visited yet - not any that I have read at least - with people living forever. That helped make it at least a little more interesting.
It still felt nice to get back into that genre. The authors who write it have some certain writing style that flows with the mood of this genre. Its a sort of simple writing style, yet with vocabulary. It differs from any of the other genre writing styles, which sometimes blend together in some books.
It was nice to get back, but now I feel like I need to read the other two books in this series.

This book was not what I expected it to be. For a while I was reading realistic fiction, romance, and I was exited to get into something a little more dystopian. Everything about Haven and the Replicas was dystopian, but there was so much about this book I found disappointing. It was a real turn off and I am surprised that there is a second book.
Gemma’s story was unrealistic. At the beginning of the book it talks about how strict her parents are and how they always keep her under a close radar. However, during the rest of the book the parents kind of disappeared until the very end. Which was strange, seeing how in the beginning she said she could never get anything past them. If her parents were really that over-protective then they would have been brought up a lot more in the story.
It was not written to be a second book either. Towards the end the author was speeding up, meaning she was trying to fit everything she needed into one book without it being too many pages. That is not the best strategy. It became evident that while she was writing this, she was not thinking about a second book. And if she was she was thinking of it in a Harry Potter sense (every book is like a different episode or new adventure). It just didn’t fit with the way she wrote this book. The conclusion is too concluding for there to be a second book, yet there is one. She wrapped it up so nicely that the second book almost has nowhere to pick up on. There is no cliffhanger to imply the readers to pick up the second book. You could almost finish the series with the first book if you really wanted to.
The characters were great, especially Lyra. I didn’t really like Gemma’s cliche odd-one-out/bullied story to start off with. The plot line was great, and so was the not too evident love triangle. There was one if you look really hard. I would have loved some more drama and suspense. I think the book tried, but really lacked in that area. It was a good book, just very disappointing and not what I was expecting. If you do read this book, make sure you have an open mind before you open it. I was looking for something within this book, and I didn’t find it. So if you enter the book the same way, don’t be disappointed if you can’t find what you are looking for, or like in this book.

This book was so unneeded. The first book wasn’t that great, and this one was just disappointing. I cannot see how the author was able to find anything else to write about the characters in this one. It didn’t make sense to have this book be published. I guess if you absolutely loved the first book then you might like this one, but otherwise it was not good.
The problems in here felt so forced and almost like they wouldn’t happen if this was real. The writing also felt rushed and crammed, like the author was trying to write a full story, had no idea where she was going with it, had a minimum word count, and a very short deadline.
This book should not have been attempted, or published. I feel like I wasted valuable time I could have spent elsewhere trying to get through this book. If you read the first book, there is no need to read the second. Especially since it ruins the series once you finish it.

I really liked this prequel. It was interesting and I feel it gave me an understanding of Zorander that I did not have when I read the books. Prequels are almost like history books of the series. It tells you what happened before the events in the book and gives you intel on the characters that you know and love from the series. If history books for us were this interesting then I might like history a bit better. Maybe if it was just told in narrative perspective, and not the cryptic recollections that we do read in class. But if they actually were like this than I would love it. Always read the prequels to a series if you liked it. They provide so much more intel and you get so much more out of the series.

This is the book that starts off my favorite series. So far I think this is the best book of the series. Which happens a lot with first books of a series. When I read this I wish I could write like this as well. I am a part time writer. I only write fan fiction so far, but I hope to be able to work up to this level one day. The word building and magic in this book was astounding. I loved all the magic and different kinds of magic people have. The author made the world easy to understand once you get started reading an get really into the book. As I said before, I write fan fiction. One of the first things I noticed when I started to read the first book was how many opportunities for fan fiction there were. Yay fan fiction!!! There were so many things that were not labeled and left open for readers to imagine for themselves. There are also some key places that seem like fan fiction would just work great with them. I just can't explain how good this book was in words. You need to read it and experience it. It holds some amazing feelings inside of it, like the feeling of actually using magic. It feels . . . extraordinary. I love this series so much and you all need to read it. Im serious, go read it!!!!! I am also very exited for the third book! YAY!!! No series I have ever read can compare to this one. Maybe thats just a thing thats happening because Im reading the series right now, or because its my most recent series that I have read, but I like to think not. And maybe it isn't.