Review: Midnight Blue-Light Special

Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm so glad I picked this one up along with Discount Armageddon, 'cause I don't know what I would've done if I'd waited to read that one before getting the sequel. The Verity withdrawal would've killed me - and it very likely still will, what with the reveal in the Acknowledgments that the next two InCryptid books will have Verity's brother Alex as the main character. I was actually disappointed to read this. What can I say? I've fallen hard for Verity, so much more so than for Toby. The fact that she bears a pretty noticeable resemblance to Emma Stone (according to the cover art, at least) really helps. (I also said Toby's cover-art pictures looked like Emma Stone - which proves only that I keep seeing her everywhere.) And that also made it hard for me not to cry when Verity talked about what Antimony calls her "Gwen Stacy thing," but let's not go there.

Oh well. I can always hope that Verity will be back in the driver's seat for Book 5. And that even without her in the lead role, the next two books in the series will still include considerable ass-kickage, more geek references than you can shake a stick at, and of course those maddeningly adorable Aeslin mice.

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Review: Discount Armageddon

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Verity Price may be very much into dancing, but that doesn't mean she's got zero geek cred. Let's face it, she wouldn't be a Seanan McGuire lead if she didn't. And between her dancing, her geek cred, and her super-duper-always-awesome skills of ass-kickage, she's every bit as awesome and memorable as Toby Daye. Ramming the point home is her playlist at the end of the book - unsurprisingly, it's my kind of playlist too. Eclectic and awesome, including such gems as "Manic Monday" and "U + Ur Hand" (I seriously couldn't stop singing that song, in particular, to myself as I kept reading this book.) Why can't Toby have that kind of playlist? She deserves one too. I might just make one for her someday.

I'm just glad my library finally got their hands on this book. Despite being in the Bay Area, my library's not been keeping up on their McGuire very well lately. But now they finally completed the collection with this book, I've been able to start and enjoy this one, then move on to Book 2 very quickly - I'm just gonna take an Orson Scott Card break first. (But I don't think I'm gonna love Speaker For The Dead nearly as much as this one.)

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Tiny Teen Wolf Cast

Inspired by the weird and wonderful misadventures of Twitter's favorite adorable thing, @tiny_hannibal, I've decided to turn the cast of Teen Wolf into tiny-fied versions of themselves. Here they are!

On the left, we have Lydia, Stiles, Liam, and Malia. Down the middle are Derek, Scott, and Jackson. And on the right, of course, are Allison, Isaac, Danny, and Kira.

Whew - that was fun to draw. Now back to writing and/or random tweeting! :D

Review: The Deaths of Tao

The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

No sophomore slump here for Tao - the second entry in the series really ramps up the stakes as the Prophus and Genjix (I wonder who copyedited the back-cover blurb, 'cause they misspelled "Genjix" there - although, to be fair, my computer doesn't seem to accept it as a word even when spelled correctly) well and truly go to war. The Genjix plan, in particular, is the stuff of legend, and hopefully will never be attempted on this planet in reality.

That ending, though...my God. *goes into cave to special-order Book 3, the title of which actually seems to make more sense now*

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Review: Endgame: The Complete Training Diaries

Endgame: The Complete Training Diaries by James Frey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although not every Player's secret backstory is super-duper-totally compelling, a fair few of them are. Chief among them - those of Marcus, Sarah, An, and Jago. There's also the story behind Aisling's father Declan, which (based on the Sky Key blurb) is an important building block for her character. Because after all, every game needs a Game Breaker.

Overall, this was a nice little treat to pass the time while waiting for Sky Key. That one needs to be in my hands NOW.

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Review: Passion

Passion by Lauren Kate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I knew I was waiting for validation of my decision to read this series, and finally, it has come. Ms. Kate, in this installment, decided to go for Something Completely Different - time travel, and lots of it. Oh, and Bill, who's now my favorite character in this series, simply for the breath of fresh air he provides.

But most importantly, answers about the series' driving mysteries have finally been provided. And hoo boy, were they nasty answers. Let's face it, as far as this book is concerned, Supernatural's got it wrong - there's no bigger bag of dicks than Satan. (SPN's Metatron tried, though. Oh, how he tried.) And now, the ending of this book really raises the stakes, so I have to finish the series now, even if it turns out this book was just the series' peak. (I really hope not, though.)

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Aww, The Birthday Feels... :D

Yesterday, I turned 22. A few Wattpad friends, upon learning of this immediately teased me with a certain Taylor Swift song (no names, because the Secretary insisted on disavowing all knowledge of their actions - and yes, I saw Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation today, which I highly recommend to all living within a hundred miles of a movie theater!) However, some others gave me a different, much more awesomer type of gift. I think this might be a personal record for me - today, I got no less than three ( <3 ) Wattpad dedications!

First off, the latest chapter of Sarah Benson's The Bloodstone Prophecy - her second Shadow Wars novel! (Think Kane Chronicles or Children of the Lamp for an older audience - YA Egyptian adventure.)

Second, this review of Red Rain, penned by Wattpadder @Falling4Angels.

And third, the ever-amazing @SkiesAfterRain gifted me the first-ever fanfic of one of my stories - in which Jay, Evan, and Harris go to Comic-Con!

Many thanks to all of you for rocking out loud! :3 :D