14 Gorgeous Book Covers

I don't know about you guys, but I'm a sucker for pretty or interesting covers. Here are some covers that I'm absolutely in love with. I haven't actually read all the books yet, but with these covers, I'm going to have to!

                                                                                                                         

  

What's the most beautiful book cover you've ever seen? Answer in the comments!

Six 2013 Books I'm Looking Forward To

Hey everyone!

I'm sorry for not updating recently. My laptop broke, I just got a new one though! Today I'm not posting a review. Instead, here are some 2013 YA books I'm looking forward to. I got the book covers off of Goodreads.


The Indigo Spell (Bloodlines #3) by Richelle Mead)

Release Date: February 13, 2013

I read the first book in a night, then went to Wal-Mart the next day, bought the second book, and read it that night. I love these books more than I love The Vampire Academy series. Top 2 contributing factors:
1. I connect to Sydney more than I connect to Rose
2. Adrian!!
These books have made me laugh, they've made me cry, and now they  are making me WAIT. Not cool. When I read the end of Golden Lily, my heart exploded. I love Sydney and all, but NO ONE does that to Adrian and gets away with it! Especially since it's obvious her and Adrian are soulmates. Not cool, Sydney Sage, not cool. Hopefully they'll get married or something in the third book. I can't stand seeing Adrian like this!

Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

Release Date: March 19, 2013

I started reading Cassandra Clare before everyone I knew started to. I got the first three Mortal Instruments for Christmas from my aunt one year. I couldn't sleep that night, so guess what I did? I read City of Bones. I finished that entire book in one night. It was that good. I seriously can't get enough of Cassandra's witty characters. I could spend the rest of eternity re-reading her books and STILL laugh every single time I read them. Can't get enough of Jace and Will. Although who can? Who else's jaw dropped near the end of book 2? She must end up with Will! I love Jem and all, but I'm Team Will! What about you guys?

Light (Gone #6) by Michael Grant

Release Date: April 2, 2013

This series is so freaking screwed up, but so very entertaining. Everyone over the age of 15 disappears? Okay, that could get interesting. Add in superpowers, starvation, battles and pregnancy? Heck yeah! Seriously, I have NEVER been bored the entire series. If you haven't read it, you better get on it, even STEPHEN KING has praised this series. It gets better with every book. Do you know what that means? That means that this book will somehow be better than the ones before it. Which I don't even think is possible, because these books have somehow reached the highest level of epicness possible. But I bet Michael Grant will somehow manage it, although I'm sure he'll leave behind a trail of blood, not a single book has gone by without the death of a few characters. But I don't care, I need to know what's up with the FAYZ!

                                                                        The Rising (Darkness Rising #3) by Kelley Armstrong

Release Date: April 13, 2013

I'll admit, I literally just finished the previous book in this trilogy. I always put reading new books off because... I actually don't know. I think it might be because I'm scared something will happen to the characters I became attached to. I had a motivation though, Kelley Armstrong recently came to my library. I have a SIGNED copy. That's   right. Signed. Be jealous, very jealous. Anyway now that I've read the second book, I literally can't wait for this book. I'd cut off my left arm to get this book, but only one, I still need to flip pages! According to Kelley, the characters from this series and the Darkest Powers series meet up! How cool is that? I'm dying to know how it ends!






The Elite (The Selection #2) by Kiera Cass

Release Date: April 23, 2013

My local bookstore was having a "Buy 3 Books, Get the 4th Free" sale. I picked 3 that I had seen on goodreads and liked, but I didn't have a clue what to get for the fourth one. So, I went and picked a random one out of the shelves. It was The Selection by Kiera Cass. I wanted to be spontaneous (since I'm really not a spontaneous person), so I skimmed the blurb and bought it at random, despite having never heard of it. I think the absolutely gorgeous cover helped though. Am I the only person drawn in by gorgeous covers? And is it possible or is this cover some how even MORE gorgeous. I love it. So. Freaking. Much. Is America going to choose Maxon or Aspen? Personally I hope she chooses Maxon.

"Detergent" (Divergent #3) by Veronica Roth

Release Date: September 26, 2013

Please don't shoot me, but I haven't read Insurgent yet. I don't know why, I just keep putting it off! I've read Divergent AT LEAST 5 times though. I'm completely positive this will rock though. Don't ask me why. I just KNOW!













Those are just some of them. There are a TON more, but I didn't want this to get too long.

What books are you guys looking forward to?
To all bloggers, how did you guys get people to read your blog? Do you have any sort of tips for a newbie?
Answer in the comments!

Review - Crush Control

Crush Contol by Jennifer Jabaley

First Published: May 21, 2011

Pages: 318

My Rating: 2.5/5

Goodreads Summary: Willow has spent most of her life as her mother’s sidekick in a popular Las Vegas hypnotism show. So when she and her mom move back to their sleepy southern hometown to start over, she thinks she’s in for a life of quiet normalcy. Except that her new life turns out to be anything but, when she kinda sorta hypnotizes Quinton, the hottest guy on the football team, to fall madly, deeply, head over heels in love with her. But what started out as an innocent way to make her best friend, Max, jealous soon gets way out of hand, and Willow begins to wonder if the mind—and more importantly, the heart—is something you can really control.


The blank spaces between these ( ) are spoilers, if you want to read them, just highlight the text.

Let me start by saying I was planning on writing this review earlier. This book took me way longer to read than planned. It started off good, with a cliche plot with a new twist. Boy and girl are best friends, one of them moves away and comes back when they are teenagers. The twist being Willow (our MC), hypnotized Max into being her best friend forever before she left. When she moves back to her hometown, she meets a hottie named Quinton in the park. They meet when her Cher loving dog humps his leg. Not even kidding, it was actually pretty funny.

The conflict starts when she hypnotizes some people for entertainment at Quinton's party. Now people are coming to her, asking her to hypnotize their problems away. Guess what Willow does? If you guessed "help" them, you're right. Of course she manages to screw EVERYTHING up. And instead of going to the one person who can help her, she does everything else. Even though it obviously won't work (there's a difference between magic and hypnosis!), and she knows that it's screwing with with not only people's futures, but possibly their well being.

The book dragged on a lot, throughout most of the book I was mentally screaming "JUST END ALREADY!" It was pretty repetive, with the MC agreeing to help someone (A.K.A. hypnotise them, and screw everything up), and then regretting it. Don't even get me stareted on when she hypnotizes someone for her own benefit, (finds out it could possibly become irreversible if she doesn't reverse it soon), as well as screws up their future and spends the rest of the book being being all like "OMG, what do I do?! It's not like my Mom used to hypnotise people and will know how to reverse this!" Yup, she's screwing with other people's minds and she's too self absorbed to ask for help.

Anybody want to listen to me rant about Willow some more? She is the most selfish character ever! She's too afraid of failing her mom to admit she did something she shouldn't have. Even when she knows that what she did (may be irreversible if she doesn't fix it in time, is screwing with her "puppet's" (that's pretty much what she turned Quinton into) future, and might cause people physical harm!). You know how she (hypnotises Quinton to fall in love with her), at the same time she's also in love with Max! I mean I know she's in love with Max and he already has a girlfriend. But why can't she try to wow him like a normal girl?

Overall, the book has a good concept but as it goes on it starts to drag on and on and on and on.... and on top of that, I hated the MC.

If you're curious about the rating, I decided to rate it every fifty pages and average it. The ratings ranged from 3.5/5 to 2/5 (better ratings at the beginning than at the end). I ended up with a number around 2.28, which got rounded up to 2.5/5.

Have you guys read this book? Have you ever been hypnotized? Do you know someone who has been hypnotized? Comment down below!

Review - Cryer's Cross

Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann

First Published: Febuary 8, 2011

Pages: 256

My Rating: 4.5/5

Goodreads Summary: Kendall loves her life in small town Cryer's Cross, Montana, but she also longs for something more. She knows the chances of going to school in New York are small, but she's not the type to give up easily. Even though it will mean leaving Nico, the world's sweetest boyfriend, behind.

But when Cryer's Cross is rocked by unspeakable tragedy, Kendall shoves her dreams aside and focuses on just one goal: help find her missing friends. Even if it means spending time with the one boy she shouldn't get close to... the one boy who makes her question everything she feels for Nico.

Determined to help and to stay true to the boy she's always loved, Kendall keeps up the search—and stumbles upon some frightening local history. She knows she can't stop digging, but Kendall is about to find out just how far the townspeople will go to keep their secrets buried....

So, I've been pacing around my room decided what I should review for my first review. After a while I just decided to grab a random book that I've already read. Oh, and by the way, the random spaces in between these ( ) are spoilers, if you want to read them, highlight the text. Anyway, onto the review.

  

I read this book in one sitting. Not because it's short (okay, well that's part of it), but because I really liked it. I admit that I'm definitely not an expert in the horror genre. I'll read a creepy pasta on the internet and it'll leave me sleepless for days. This book didn't actually scare me very much, it's creepiness only lingered in my brain for a few hours. But there are these really cool messages at random points in the book. Here's one from the very start of the book.

WE

     When it is over, we breathe and ache like old oak, like peeling birch. One of Our lost souls set free. We move, a chess piece in the dark room, cast iron legs a centimeter at a time, crying out in silent carved graffiti. Calling to Our next victim, Our next savior. We carve on our face:

Touch me.

Save my soul. 

I don't know about you, but I looked forward to these messages. I thought this was an excellent way to start the book. Onto the plot. The plot was put together pretty well and I loved how well Kendall's OCD tied into the plot. Although the ending was kind of cheesy (the desk was haunted, really? Ooh possessed desk, now that's the plot for a freaky novel!), I liked how it all tied together, with no loose ends whatsoever. I also loved how the romance in the book was the undertone. Don't you hate in when you're expecting to read a book with an exciting plot, but instead it's taken over by romance? I do. The pacing was pretty good, whenever I started to get bored something interesting happened. 

I felt really bad for Kendall, her boyfriend (although she doesn't use that word), disappeared and everyone expects her to go back to her every day life after the search for Nico. On top of this her soccer team is disbanded, (she doesn't get into Julliard), (and she also nearly dies). All in all, Kendall's life is pretty crappy. I liked the other characters too. Her love interest wasn't a copy of her (thank god!), and the other characters weren't completely pushed out of the picture because her character hogged the entire book. 

Overall, I would recommend this book. It was amazing other than the cheesy ending. 

If you have the chance, you should also check out her Dream Catcher trilogy starting with Wake. In the future, I will probably also review one of her other books called Dead to You. It's been sitting in my room for ages, but I haven't actually gotten to reading it.

Have you guys read this book? What did you think? Comment below!

 

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! 

*Waves* Hi, my name is Katlyn! This is actually my first blog, so I hope I'm doing this right. I live in Canada and I LOVE to read (obviously). I'm going to be reviewing YA books, which you probably already know from the name of this blog. If you want to contact me, you can either comment on one of my posts or email me at touchofcolourya@hotmail.com. So... maybe I'll list some of my favourite books below.

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
The Private Series by Kate Brian
Anything by John Green!
The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan
Anything by Meg Cabot
Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
 The Au Pairs series by Melissa de la Cruz
Anything by Sarah Dessen
....I could go on and on and on and on....