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After all these years, it’s still one of my favorites.   Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker--his classmate and crush--who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah's recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.- goodreads.com “No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same.” “A flood of emotions rushes into me. Pain and anger. Sadness and pity. But most surprising of all, hope.” Wow. This was my second time rea...

Who would’ve thought I’d find myself reading historical fiction? It's 1941 and fifteen-year-old artist Lina Vilkas is on Stalin's extermination list. Deported to a prison camp in Siberia, Lina fights for her life, fearless,  risking everything to save her family. It's a long and harrowing journey and it is only their incredible strength, love, and hope that pull Lina and her family through each day. But will love be enough to keep them alive?- goodreads.com “Was it harder to die, or harder to be the one who survived?” I am not usually one to read historical fiction but I picked up Between Shades of Gray because I was such a big fan of Salt to the Sea . After finishing it, I didn’t enjoy Between Shades of Gray as much as Salt to the Sea (which was one of favorites of last year), but I still really liked it. I love Ruta Sepetys’s novels because they feel real. This seems obvious since they are historical fiction novels and based on true events, but I...

Victoria Schwab is back with yet another brilliant book! *ACOL is the final book in a trilogy, please do not spoil this fabulous trilogy for yourself by reading any farther. Instead, click HERE and go to my review of the first book* THE BALANCE OF POWER HAS FINALLY TIPPED... The precarious equilibrium among four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise. WHO WILL CRUMBLE? Kell - once assumed to be the last surviving Antari - begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. And in the wake of tragedy, can Arnes survive? WHO WILL RISE? Lila Bard, once a commonplace - but never common - thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attemptin...

Hey fellow readers, welcome to Top 5 Wednesday! If you don’t know what Top 5 Wednesday is then click   HERE , if not, stay! This week’s topic is top 5 SCIFI/ fantasy books. By now it is safe to say, Victoria Schwab is my favorite author. A Darker Shade of Magic is the fourth series I’ve read by her and it has never disappointed. I’m in the middle of the third book right now and LOVING it. Oh look, my other favorite author. The Unwind series has brought me so many emotions. I’ve laughed, cried, and cheered these characters on since I was in 8th grade; it just feels so real. These are technically Urban Fantasy, but that is a subgenre of fantasy sooo :) This is another series where everyone feels so real! After the end of each series, I never want to let these characters go. I sobbed at the end of both Clockwork Princess and City of Heavenly Fire . Check these books out (and PS, I recommend reading in publication order for any Cassandra Clare novices). ...

ONLY ONE MORE SEASON LEFT! After hearing in summer of last year, that season four of Orphan Black had a focus on the past and learning things about Beth, I couldn’t wait to watch it! Of course, being me, I waited until January to finally sit down and watch the season, but now I think this is my favorite season yet! My favorite element of season four, is the cyclical nature of the plot. Many events are paralleling the events of the first season. This gave the writers to go back and explore more about Beth and introduce characters such as Mika. I loved both of these clones for similar reasons. They were both loners, who kept things to themselves, which sadly ultimately led to Beth’s downfall. They also had a combined brain power to discover things that it took clone club FOUR SEASONS to discover. Throughout Season four Sarah ends up in a similar mindset that Beth was when we first saw her in the first moments of season one. It’s tragic seeing Sarah, such a passionate charac...

I was casually scrolling through Netflix the other day when I stumbled on a Maximum Ride movie. I vaguely remembered hearing about the movie a while ago, but hadn’t hear anything recently so I was curious. Max Ride was a big part of my middle school (I read seven of the many books) and the movie was only an hour and a half so I had to check it out. I wasn’t expecting anything from the movie, and I guess I wasn’t disappointed… but I wasn’t impressed either. As a previous fan of the books, Max Ride brought to light many of the issues with the book series. I have to wonder what James Patterson was thinking when he decided to call the secret experiment lab “the school” and the evil monsters “Erasers”. Neither of those are particularly threatening names for villainous characters and places. Fang failed to live up to his name in the movie. If one’s name is Fang, I feel they need to be the most angst filled person ever, and movie Fang was actually a pretty cool, levelheaded guy— I ...