Top Ten Books I Want Santa to Bring Me

Top 10 Tuesday is a post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week's topic is Top Ten Books I Want Santa to Bring Me.

1. Winter (Lunar Chronicles, # 4) by Marissa Meyer
2. Their Fractured Light (Starbound, # 3) by Meagan Spooner & Aime Kaufman
3. The Anatomical Shape of a Heart by Jenn Bennett
4. On Becoming Babywise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nightime Sleep by Gary Ezzo
5. Esther: A Royal Beauty (A Dangerous Beauty, # 1) by Angela Hunt
6. The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles, # 2) by Mary E Pearson (already read but do not own)
7. End of Days (Penryn & the End of Days, # 3) by Susan Ee
8. Split Second (Pivot Point, # 2) by Kasie West
9. Inspiring You (Unraveling You, # 4) by Jessica Sorensen
10. Extreme Wordsearch Puzzle Books by Parragon Books - Is it totally weird that I've been kind of craving a good search-a-word?

Which books are you hoping that Santa brings you? Let me know!

Top Ten New to Me Authors I Read in 2015

Top 10 Tuesday is a post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week's topic is Top Ten New to Me Authors I Read in 2015.

1. Jamie Shaw
2. Pierce Brown
3. Cora Carmack
4. Susan Ee
5. Rebecca Shea
6. Huntley Fitzpatrick
7. Courtney C Stevens
8. Jennifer Anne Davis
9. Jen Hatmaker
10. Miranda Kenneally

Who are your top ten new to you authors that you've read this year? Let me know!

World After - Review

World After (Penryn & the End of Days, # 2)

By: Susan Ee

Published: November 19th 2013 by Skyscape

320 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Angels, Dystopian

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--In this sequel to the bestselling fantasy thriller, Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what's left of the modern world.

When a group of people capture Penryn's sister Paige, thinking she's a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.

Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels' secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.

Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can't rejoin the angels, can't take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?

World After picks up almost immediately where Angelfall left off. Penryn’s just waking up from being paralyzed by the scorpion sting. Raffe thinks she’s dead—everyone around her thinks she’s dead. And so when she wakes she’s pretty much treated like a freak who’s come back from the dead. It just so happens that Paige, Penryn’s sister, is also treated like a freak because of the surgeries that the angels did on her. And then well, Penryn’s mom pretty much is crazy. So that rounds out their whacky family.

And to add to the crazy, Paige can’t keep any food down. Penryn’s afraid of what exactly Paige might have a craving for. And as a result, Paige sets out on her own and Penryn has to go hunting her down again. In the meantime, Raffe is still trying to get his wings back from Beliel while keeping his new demon wings a secret from the other angels.

I have to say that I didn’t love World After as much as Angelfall because Penryn and Raffe are separated for the majority of the book. We all know that I’m a sucker for romance. I mean 95% of the books that I read I’m looking for that romantic relationship. So Penryn and Raffe not being together wasn’t as enjoyable for me to read. Penryn was lucky enough to experience some of Raffe’s past memories through his sword which is still in her possession. The sword is now bonded to Penryn, and as part of the bond the sword is determined to teach Penryn how to use her properly using some of Raffe’s memories as teaching exercises. This showed Penryn more of Raffe and only served to increase her feelings for him.

I really enjoyed the moment that they finally reunite, and I actually liked the fact that they didn’t just jump into “everything’s okay now” mode because these two still have a lot to work out between them before they can have a true relationship. I loved seeing the trust and dependence that’s already built up between them. And I can’t wait to see how this plays out in End of Days.

Favorite quotes:

-It’s painful to see that people prefer a bad guy who looks like an angel to a good guy who looks like a demon.

-Sometimes, I just have to let go and let my inner Mom out.

-“A true warrior would have retrieved her sword first before doing personal business.” “I’m all about personal business. Every battle I have is personal.”

World After was a good middle book for a trilogy. It wasn’t nearly as good for me as Angelfall because of the amount of time Penryn & Raffe spent apart, but I look forward to that not being the case in End of Days. I don’t know that the overall storyline progressed much in World After, but I wasn’t annoyed or frustrated through the entire reading of it either. World After gets 4 Stars. Have you read World After? What did you think? Let me know!

Angelfall - Review

Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, # 1)

By: Susan Ee

Published: May 23rd 2013 by Hodder and Stoughton (first published May 21st 2011)

326 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Angels, Dystopian

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--It's been six weeks since the angels of the apocalypse destroyed the world as we know it. Only pockets of humanity remain.

Savage street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night.

When angels fly away with a helpless girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back...

Angelfall has been on my TBR list for years. Due to the release of End of Days, Angelfall and World After were both available for review through NetGalley, and I snatched them both up. And I’m so glad that I did. I hate that I didn’t get End of Days, but you know how that goes.

Angelfall starts out with Penryn, her sister Paige, and their mother. The world has been taken over by angels. The angels have caused a lot of destruction and a whole lot of death. So when Penryn & family witness an angel’s wings being cut off by some other angels, it surprises everyone that Penryn jumps in to save the angel. Really she’s hoping to cause a distraction so her mother and sister can escape. While Penryn is trying to save her family, Paige is trying to save Penryn which results in Paige getting kidnapped by one of the angels responsible for cutting the wings off the other angel. What happens is that Penryn ends up with this dying angel on her hands, her sister is kidnapped, and her mother is missing.

Angelfall reminded me a lot of Under the Never Sky. For one, Penryn and Raffe would consider themselves enemies—or at the very least, not on the same side at all. Yet, they end up on this journey together. Penryn is trying to find her sister, and Raffe needs to get his wings sewn back on. Enemies become unlikely, temporary allies. Having someone’s back on a journey because you need them for some task or end result leads into some gray territory. And when someone saves your life (multiple times), I imagine that you can’t help but form some kind of trust in them.

Raffe and Penryn run into a camp of resistors trying to organize the remaining human race into a unified attack against the angels. Raffe has to keep his angel identity a secret, but it’s hard not to root for this camp at the same time.

I loved the slow build to Penryn and Raffe’s relationship. Penryn isn’t sure where they stand for the majority of the book. They have this tenuous relationship. Trust isn’t solidified. And I loved it. The uncertainty of how the other person feels makes for one of my favorite story dynamics. Raffe knows what happens to angels who fall in love with humans, and even more than that, he’s witnessed what happens to the humans who fall in love with angels. So now you add forbidden to the potential romance mix. Raffe can’t let anything happen between them no matter what either of them thinks or feels.

Of course there’s more going on beyond the romance in the story. What’s happened to Paige? Is she still alive? And if she is, will she ever be the same? Why did another angel cut Raffe’s wings? And why are the angels the bad guys? Will the Resistance make any headway?

I will say that I don’t love the idea of angels being the enemy. There’s a difference between angels and demons and for an angel to be agnostic is just beyond incomprehensible for me. So I found that to be slightly annoying. And then similar to the direction of Supernatural, it seems like God is MIA. I realize that this is a fictional story, but I’ve been less and less tolerant to anything that feels irreverent to me lately.

Favorite quotes:

-Forget plans. I don't have enough information to formulate a plan. My instincts will have to do. And my instincts tell me that Raffe is mine.

-"My friends call me Wrath," says Raffe. "My enemies call me Please Have Mercy."

-I just want to be an ordinary girl living an ordinary life.

-It seems to be our fate to continually pass our debt back and forth.

Angelfall was such an enjoyable read for me. In the middle of the biggest reading slump I’ve experienced since I started blogging, Angelfall was a light in the dark. It was easy to get through and a quick finish for me. I enjoyed the slow build of Penryn and Raffe’s relationship and that they even still have much further to go. I enjoyed the other mysteries going on as well. I look forward to continuing the series and will be picking up World After as soon as possible. Angelfall gets 4 Stars. Have you read Angelfall? What did you think? Let me know!