Internship at my local Book Store!

Hi, guys!

As you can gather from the title, I'm currently doing an internship at my local book store!

This is just a little post about what I've experienced so far!
The internship started yesterday morning and will end on Friday.
Yesterday I've helped decorating a shopwindow and followed the employees literally everywhere.
I only did little tasks, sometimes not book related at all (like buying polish from the opposing shop).

Today, there was an employee closer to my age and we talked quite a lot, which was really great!
We ate cake together and talked about anything and everything (there weren't many customers in the afternoon).
We rearranged various book shelves and I could do some on my own without making the array looking terrible!
Tomorrow I'll help organizing the "bestseller"-shelf and I'm really looking forward to it!

The best part of the whole internship are the sample copies. Ha.
Publishers are sending those to the book shops, so the employees can read them, rate them and recommend them to their customers. I've already read An Ember in the Ashes (review will follow soon) yesterday and I am currently reading We Were Liars!

       An Ember in the Ashes                                                                      We Were Liars
                                                


Have a great day!
Franzi

[Update, May 30]
I've read another book:
12 things to do before you crash and burn by James Proimos

The Elite by Kiera Cass

Hi, guys!
I'm back with another review for you!

BASICS

Title: The Elite
Series: The Selection Series, #2
Author: Kiera Cass
Release Date: April 23^rd 2013

Publisher: HarperTeen

ISBN: 0062059963
Number of Pages: 336
Genre: Romance, Young Adult

SUMMARY

Only six girls are left to compete for Prince Maxon's heart.
America Singer is one of them.
But when everything seemed settled and perfect, i.e.. Maxon told her he loves her, Aspen, America's ex-boyfriend, appears in the palace. Old feelings stir again and America has to choose.
Does she love Maxon, prince of Illéa, who's willing to give her anything or Aspen, her longtime lover, whom she loved since she was young?

MY OPINION

Okay, let's start this review with a short explanation why I've even read The Elite (after mentioning several times that I'm not fond of The Selection.)
My parents gave me The Elite for Christmas and I don't want them to spend money for me without apprecitating it. So I've read it.
In The Elite we're following the last six girls who are trying to win Maxon's heart.
America is – obviously – one of them. So while America has to decide if she loves Aspen or Maxon, the latter one does everything to convince her he's the one – while dating five other girls.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: This book is a romance. Not a dystopian novel.
Almost all of the 336 pages are about America's flirts with either Maxon or Aspen or her being heartbroken because Maxon doesn't give her enough attention.
One word to sum up her actions in The Elite? Frustrating.

Me while reading her back and forth between her two lovers:


She obviously still loves Aspen and whenever Maxon did something 'wrong', she runs to Aspen to get comforted. Which leads to quite some distance between Maxon and America.
He then tries to get to know the other girls better in case America should choose to leave him. And then she gets jealous and we complete our perfect vicious circle.
America, you can't have everything.
If you tell Maxon 'no, I don't want you', you have no right to be upset about him spending more time with other girls.
I'm not saying that everything he did was the best way to do so, but he tried so hard to help America in every way and to make her feel comfortable with her surroundings. He has a right to be happy.
But – as in most YA novels with a love triangle – only the main character's wants are important.
The two love interests have to do her bidding.

I can't say that her not being able to choose was my biggest problem but that she did choose. Like, twenty times a chapter. Okay, I'm exaggerating but it felt like that while reading.

Litereally, every time she was like It's him! He's the one I love! I'll stick with him! I could only roll my eyes and think Girl, we're only halfway through, you'll probably change your mind over the next four pages.

Moving on to the plot.
Wait, what plot exactly?
I have nothing against character driven stories, not at all. But please, let there be at least some kind of goal (except for the end of the Selection, that's a pretty shallow one.) Let there be other achievements, new developments or suddenly appearing side questes!

If you're trying to argue with the attacks by rebels than you shoot yourself in the foot.
These damn rebel attacks got boring real fast.
How many times did the rebels get beyond the walls in those two books? Five, six times? If that was my palace I would have replaced the guards as soon as possible!
And what use were these attacks anyway?
To give America and Maxon some alone time to make up?
I don't think that political stuff is Cass' strenght.
And don't even get me started on all these ethnic stereotypes!
Those graceful Asians, stuffy Germans and celebratory Italians.

And even though, all our three main characters weren't very likeable, at least they had some good and some bad character traits.
Which is something you can't say about the maids Anne, Mary and Lucy.
I'm still not sure what unique personality Anne and Mary are supposed to have.
I wouldn't have minded if Cass had written them as one person.

And Lucy's only „characteristic“ are her traumatic memories, which are terrible for sure, but it's her only defining trait and that shows some laziness from Cass' side.

If you love The Bachlor or The Bachlorette (or whatever these shows are called), I recommend it to you. The Selection series are those in book form. And the dude's a prince.

Even though I hated almost every single character, I couldn't stop. I just had to read it, even if the only purpose was to be able to complain afterwards.
I won't stop, either. I don't want some finished series on my shelf.
So stay tuned for a review for The One sometime in the future!

RATING

2 out of 5 stars

Stay funky, guys!

The Disney Book Tag!

Hi, guys!
Today I'm doing my very first book tag!
I wasn't tagged in any of the recent tags but

I thought a lot about which tag I'm going to do, and I finally decided for the: Book Tag
This Tag was created by Katytastic to celebrate the release of The Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz.
                                                     

The book focuses on the villans of all Disney movies who where banished to the so-called Isle Of The Lost together with their children. Now, twenty years later, the daughter of Maleficent, Mal, is send on some kind of journey to find a dragon's eye to escape the island and yeah, that's actually all I know about it.
Oh, I almost forgot! The Isle of the Lost serves as a prequel to the upcoming Disney Movie in which the kids of the villans go to the same (boarding?) school as the heroes' children!

Now, without further ado, let's get started!

Number 1: Little Mermaid A character that felt out of place or like a fish out of water.

For this one I chose Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien
He's your average homely, food-loving hobbit.
Then suddleny the wizard Gandalf and the party around the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield appear and Bilbo is more or less talked into being their burglar to retake the Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug.
So you get why he's the fish out of water here.


Number 2: Cinderella
A character that goes through a major transformation.
Here I decided to pick Meghan Chase from the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa.
It's been a while since I've read those books but I always admired Meghan for her character development.
She starts as a normal girl who has to struggle with bullying at school.
Suddenly her brother Ethan is captured and taken to Nevernever, the land of the Faeries.
Together with her best friend Robbie, who's actually Puck, a Faery, she goes on a quest to bring her brother back but one thing leads to another and she needs to rescue the Faery realms. I won't tell you what her transformation is exactly about, if you want to know, I recommend you to read the books. (Even though, I'm not a fan of love triangles at all, I enjoyed this series!)

Number 3: Snow White
A book with an eclectic cast of characters.

For this question I chose a quite obvious answer.
I'll go for: A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R.Martin
This book series has dozens of POVs and even more characters. I just looked it up. In total we had 32 POV characters in the whole series + the short stories.
All of them, are so complex and realistic, it's amazing
All in all, I adore this series.


Number 4: Sleeping Beauty
A book that put you to sleep.

After some thinking, I ended up choosing Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead.
This book is the fifth in the Vampire Academy series.
As stated in my reviews on the first four books, I love this series quite a bit.
But Spirit Bound just didn't do it for me. Everything was solved so easily and Rose was just annoying.
Every other character we would hate for what she's doing, but because she's our beloved Rose, it's suddenly okay?
And then her rushed opinion change about Victor? Like, no, girl.


Number 5: The Lion King
A character that had something dramatic happen in their childhood.

Well, that's a particularly difficult question. Expecially in the YA genre.
I actually had a hard time choosing someone because there are so many.
But I ended up with Ruby Daly from the Darkest Minds series by Alexandra Bracken!
About six or years prior to the events in book one, the disease IAAN broke out, which caused many children's death. Those who survived, had special powers, like mind control, telekinesis or pyrokinesis.
Because the government had no clue how to deal with those kids, they were send of to Rehabilitation Camps (official name) or Concentration Camps (the truth). Ruby was send there when she was ten years old and I just want to tuck her into some blankets and pat her head!
 


Number 6: Beauty and the Beast
A beast of a book that you were intimidated by but then found to be beautiful at the end.

Okay, number 6 on our list is the Harry Potter series by J.K.Rowling!
Lemme explain myself.
When I started reading about our Chosen One, I was hardly ten years old and despite loving books, I've always read thin and easy-to-read ones.
Books with a simple world and either good or bad characters. So I was quite intimidated by a series consisting of seven books and several movies.
But, guys, it's Harry Potter, so how can you not love it?  


Number 7: Aladdin
A character that gets their wish granted, for better or for worse.

This time I chose someone not quite as obvious:

Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Her one and only wish is to marry their daughters off to some respectable and rich noble man. Which she does. Kind of.
Jane and Lizzie marry some really rich, really respectable and really noble man.
Kitty marries a respectable clergyman, Mary a clerk.
Just Lydia's choice isn't so fortunate (but don't tell Mrs. Bennet)
In the end, her wish is fulfilled (mostly).  


Number 8: Mulan
A character who pretends to be something or someone that they're not.

Also a rather common theme in the YA genre but I decided to go for someone entirely different.
My choice is Light Yagami from the Death Note series by Tsugumi Oba and Takeshi Obata.
One day Light stumbles across a note book and if you write a name in it, the person dies (hence, the title: Death Note).
With Light's father being a police officer, he has really strict morals and uses his new power to kill
criminals. But well, things kinda get out of hand, to put it lightly (ha.) 


Number 9: Toy Story
A book that you wish the characters would come to life.

For this one I picked not a book but a whole series:
The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater.
I adore Maggie's characters and they are so realistic and so human, it's really astonishing!
The story's really hard to summarize but I'll give it a go.
Blue Sargent is the only one in a house full of psychics that has no particular powers.
But one thing about her is special. If she kisses her true love, they will die.
Then one night, when she's supposed to watch the soon-to-die cross the Corpse Road together with her aunt Neeve, Blue sees her very first spirit: A boy named Gansey. Which means that either she's his true love or she's the reason he'll die (And by her luck she's probably both).
Only a few days later, she meets him and his friends, Adam, Noah and Ronan, in real life. And she's confirmed in her rule: Stay away from Aglionby boys.
But slowly she's drawn into his world.
Gansey's life consists out of one quest. Finding the Welsh king Glendower's grave.

Well, it sounds crazy but it's just so, so good.

Number 10: Disney Descendants
Your favourite villan or moraly ambiguous character.
On to number 10!
Here, I have to pick my only recently discovered favourite.

Manon Blackbeak from The Heir of Fire by Sarah J.Maas.
She grew up in such an evil and twisted society, that it's no surprise, she turned out
equally evil and twisted. But I enjoyed reading from her perspective so much and I loved following her slowly developing some kind of moral standarts but not entirely. Like, she's still really cruel and drinks human blood for fun but then again she's so fierce and though.
I hope she will join Celaena's clique.

Now, who am I going to tag?
The answer is: Everyone! If you're interested in doing this tag, just go for it!

So, see you!
Franzi

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

Hey, guys, how's your weekend so far?
I hope better than mine. I've got a terrible cold and have like a billion assignments due next week.

Anyways, I'm back with another review! =) Enjoy!

BASICS

Title: Crown of Midnight
Series: Throne of Glass Series, #2
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Release Date: August 27^th 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
ISBN: 1619630621
Number of Pages: 418
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult

SUMMARY

After winning the battle in Throne of Glass, Celaena is now officially the King's Assassin.

But instead of killing the people he orders her to eliminate, she just pretends to.

A dangerous game because the king has sworn to kill all of her beloved ones if she does exactly what she's doing right now.

Then he orders her to kill an old friend, Archer, who seems to know a little bit more about the rebel organisation...

MY OPINION

It took me quite a while to get into this one. (I feel like I'm saying this in every review)
Not because it was terribly written or anything, I just couldn't convince myself to pick CoM up after putting it down. I've read around a hundred pages and then it just lay on my night stand and it lay there, and lay there. Then suddenly – thank god – I forced, literally forced, myself to pick it up again. And then...I kinda started an obsession.
I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD LOVE THIS SERIES AS MUCH AS I DO NOW!
After the initial difficulties I couldn't put this book down. I literally flew through it and as soon as I was finished, I ordered Heir of Fire (which I loved even more. One of my favourite books in 2015.)

A summary of this book in one word: MORE
It has more action in it, more kickass Celaena scenes, more world building, more mystery, more magic, more blood and more hilarious moments.

“Enough! We have enough enemies as it is! There are worse things out there to face!"
Celaena slowly turned to him, her face splattered with blood and eyes blazing bright. "No, there aren't," she said. "Because I'm here now.”

"If they wanted Adarlan's Assassin, they'd get her.
And Wyrd help them when she arrived.”

I'm still getting goosebumps while reading these lines.


All of our characters get so much more depth in this book, thank you, Sarah!
Her writing improved so much in comparison to book #1.
The characters seemed a bit shallow in the first one. I've never really, like, felt connected to them. After reading Crown of Midnight it kind of feels like Throne of Glass was just some kind of 'prequel' to show us the first constellation of characters and the setting for the rest of the series.

I liked to see that Dorian finally became more indipendent and more developed. In Throne of Glass he seemed like an obstacle between Chaol and Celaena's love story because right from the beginning it was quite obvious who she's eventually going to choose. So it started with a hint of a love triangle and some authors would have probably developed that in some huge plot point in the second book, but not Sarah J. Maas and I'm deeply grateful for that. I don't like love triangles at all. Just mention 

The Selection, and I run away screaming (YOU'RE SO FRUSTRATING, AMERICA).

But more to their relationship later, now I want to focus on my dear Dorian.
I feel so, so sorry for him because he really gets neglected in CoM. He has a huge secret and he has to hide it from everybody. Celaena and Chaol are busy with each other and no one's really there to listen. And oh, baby, let me hug you. Over the course of the series, he grew on me. He's the one I just want to tuck into some comfy blankets and hand a cup of tea. Then we would rant over books. Yeah. One can dream.

 

Anyway, moving on to Celaena. She's such a badass. I love her. I really do. The moment where she really shows what she's capable of? O H  M Y  G O D. It was so intense.

We get to know a bit more about her character, good and bad, even though I really liked how Sarah J. Maas showed us the dark, hidden depths of Celaena. We get to see her make mistakes and our ability to like her is tested quite a bit (not only with Celaena but with the others too.)
In book one, most of the time Celaena's quiet happy and light-hearted. Here, shit gets real. There are things Celaena has to accept, a lot of guilt, traumatic memories and true identities. Of course, it doesn't help that there's a new threath out there and it's roaming the library in the palace. While the tests in ToG were more physical for Celaena, they are of the emotional kind in Crown of Midnight.
Another thing she has to deal with are her relationships. Some are taken to new levels, some fall apart – and every single one makes you be, like

Then there's Chaol, and I really did love him in CoM but now, after reading HoF, I'm not quite sure anymore because RONAN. Chaol did some stuff I'm not very fond of but more about that in my review of Heir of Fire.
He and Celaena finally admit their feelings to each other and start a relationship. They're pretty cute and I did blush quite often, like, look what a cutie he is:

“I worry because I care. Gods help me, I know I shouldn't, but I do. So I will always tell you to be careful, because I will always care what happens.”

"Dance with me Celaena," He said again, his voice rough.

But he's not the right one for Celaena (don't hate me, it's just my opinion).
There's a lot of stuff she can't tell him (or SPOILER ALERT: he doesn't accept when she tells him), so there's always a wall between them. They can't be totally honest with each other and, again I'm talking about HoF now, there's a lot that went wrong.

As long as he can't fully accept who she is, it doesn't work.

Celaena and Nehemia's relationship is still a mystery to me. I enjoyed Nehemia's character in book one but didn't love her as much as others did. She never really appeared like a fully developed character to me and had a lot more potential.

And what I really enjoyed reading about, was the small scraps of information about other 'cultures', like the Irontheeth Witches. They are so creepy. I love them.
With CoM we start to get a glimpse of just how big the picture Maas is painting for us actually is.

Oh, and by the way: THE COVER IS SO GORGEOUS I LOVE THE SOFTNESS OF IT

RATING

4.5 out of 5 stars!

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Hey, guys! Guess, who's back?
I finally found some time to write a review, you better enjoy it.

BASICS

Title: The Dream Thieves
Series: The Raven Cycle, #2
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Release Date: September 17^th 2013
Publisher: Scholastic Press
ISBN: 1619630656
Number of Pages: 439
Genre: Paranormal, Fantasy, Young Adult

SUMMARY

Because The Dream Thieves is a sequel and I – obviously – don't want to spoil you, I can't tell you a lot about the ongoing in here, but I can at least try.
The second book in The Raven Cycle focuses mostly on Ronan Lynch and his secrets, of which one was revealed in book #1.

Adam has to deal with the consequences of his actions in book one – oh god, it's really not easy to discribe this book without spoilering you about The Raven Boys.

Well, in a nutshell, all of them have to deal with a whole bunch of old and new problems. Be excited.

MY OPINION

Okay, it's been a while since I've read The Dream Thieves but I just finished Blue Lily, Lily Blue (book #3 in the series) and desperately wanted to write a review of it – which means: I have to write a review of the second book first.

I really liked that, again, we get the POV of the main antagonist of this book, The Gray Man or simly Mr. Gray. Really sneaky, Maggie. In the first book it's Mr. Whelk, who I absolutely hated.
But I just couldn't hate Mr. Gray, even though there were a lot of reasons why I should.

Okay, I've already started talking about characters, so I'll just keep going.

As I said in the summary part of this review, the focus of this book lies on Ronan. He's such an interesting and deep character, I'm actually out of words. Right from the beginning you knew, Ronan wasn't somebody you wanted to a longer time with. It's hard to be around because he's constantly angry and if he's not, he's looking for something to be angry at. But then opposite all his 'I don't give a single fuck'-attitude, he's really religious and speaks Latin fluently. Like, I've learned Latin for six years now and I hardly can translate a sentence without my dictionary. He can even make dirty jokes in Latin! And I love his devotion to his friends and his family (and Chainsaw, who's like the coolest pet ever.) He has kind of a soft spot in his heart but he really tries to be a, quote: shithead.

Then there's Adam. In the first book he seemed like an obstacle for Blue and Gansey's love but he became so much more because of his decisions at the end of The Raven Boys, his new developed character traits (which are definitely not good) by what slowly separates himself from the group. He has duties he can't fully grasp or understand and it's kinda creepy.
He himself became kinda creepy, too.

I mean, sure I was worried out of my mind about him but he scared the shit out of me. He obviously had the worst fate of the whole group but that couldn't excuse his actions around Blue and the others.
I can't believe that some people wrote 'Blue should have just kissed him' in their reviews. She doesn't want to, if it's because of her curse or she maybe just doesn't want to kiss him, I don't care. He has no right to throw tantrums because he doesn't get what he wants.
I love Blue for being such a strong feminist. It's almost embarrassing that I haven't read a book with such a strong feministic main character. Even though she knows she's hurting Adam by refusing to kiss him, she keeps up her principles and doesn't do something she didn't want to do in the first place.“Right, sure. Because there's no girls in politics! I have no interest. Voting? What? I forgot my apron. I think I ought to be in the kitchen right now, actually. My rolling pin-”

She's such an unique and independent character, I adore her for her personality!

In this book Gansey starts to work on his weaknesses which just adds some plus points to him being total boyfriend material. He's a cute one.

His and Blue's banter was so hilarious!
Blue tries her best to not fall in love with him but it's just like this 'blue elephant'-thing. The harder you try not to do something, the more likely you are to do it in the end.
I love them together and they'll probably break my heart. We already know what will happend but I think I speak for all of us when I say:

Apart from Mr. Gray we get some new characters to discuss!
There's Orla, Blue's super confident cousin(?) who's constantly trying to get any of the boy's attention. Like she said, she's flexible.

Then there's Kavinsky who's – just like Ronan – is a really deep character. I wish we got more information about him! But well, we have to work with what we get, don't we?
I, by the way, love the names Maggie gives her characters! You'd have to lie if you said that saying 'Richard Campell Gansey III' doesn't redden your cheeks! Or Jospeh Kavinsky, Ronan Lynch or Blue Sargent.

Anyway, Kavinsky's another Aglionby boy who loves car races – especially against Ronan. They have a really weird relationship which I can't really put into words. They constantly threaten and insult each other but make each other gifts, I don't even know.

I didn't really like him, even though he kinda helped Ronan in two ways and explaining that'll be spoiler-y so watch out, guys, I've warned you.

I) Kavinsky helped him understanding the whole Dream-thing better (even though Kavinsky was a pretty big asshole about the thing. Like, the drugs and stealing and stuff.)
II) That actually should probably be part of the 'Blue Lily, Lily Blue'-review but I'm the boss here. So I'll just tell you now. I think Kavinsky helped Ronan accepting his sexuality, maybe I've been just really blind in The Raven Boys but I've never noticed that Ronan was homosexual. But after the Kavinsky story arc, he really showed how much he cared about a special person whose name I won't tell you here because SPOILERS.

Maggie's writing is as always amazing. I really adore her unique style. She's probably the goddess of hilarious situations, snarky comments and beautiful descriptions hiding between us mortals.

“In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them.
Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness.
Her raven boys.”

“It could kill you," Maura said.
Then there was the awkward moment that arrives when two thirds of the people in the room know that the other third is supposed to die in fewer than nine months, and the person who is meant to die is not one of the ones in the know.” “Ronan," Noah said, "I have a super bad feeling."
"It's called being dead," Ronan replied.”

If I hadn't already read Blue Lily, Lily Blue, I would've probably said something, like: 'Can't wait to get my hands on the next book!'. Well, damn.

Due to the fact that I indeed did read the third book, all I can say now is:

WHAT DO MEAN I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL FEBURARY

RATING

5 out of 5 stars

[Update May 13th 2015]
Oh, and by the way, I've found a brilliant website where you can read summaries of books. Like, if you (like me) read The Raven Boys a while ago and don't remember the whole plot, you can just go there and read it.
Especially the Raven Cycle recaps are hilarious (and were written by Maggie herself!)!
The Raven Boys
The Dream Thieves
Check it out, guys!