This Shattered World- Recommendation

Hey! So today I will be recommending a book called This Shattered World by Aimee Kaufman and

Meagan Spooner.

This Shattered World is the sequel to These Broken Stars, which you may remember from a recommendation I did a while back (you can see it here).

TSW follows the story of two brand new characters, still living in the same world as Lilac and Tarver from TBS. These two characters, Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac, are sworn enemies, their people battling each other for the planet Avon. Here's the synopsis-

Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.

Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.

Rebellion is in Flynn's blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.

Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.

It's another sci-fi space romance, and it's fantastic. There's cameo appearances by both Lilac and Tarver, and both Jubilee and Flynn are amazing characters in their own right. They're also really different from Lilac and Tarver, which was something I was worried wouldn't happen. Where Lilac is a wealthy socialite, Jubilee is a broken, hard war-orphan and soldier. Where Tarver is a strong, survival-oriented soldier, Flynn is 

This book also built up on the world we'd previously explored in TBS, and it was so interesting seeing it through brand new eyes. The world building was fantastic and it's really easy to lose yourself in the book because of it.

If you've read These Broken Stars and you're hesitant to pick This Shattered World up, I highly recommend you do. You won't be disappointed.

If you've not read These Broken Stars, I would suggest you read it before you read this one, as there are just little spoilers here and there for TBS. Although, if you really wanted to, there's no real reason you couldn't read This Shattered World first.

Share your thoughts in the comments, to my twitter (@lilypherondale) or to my tumblr sherlockcrumpets. Like my facebook page to keep up with my posts and what I've been doing lately! You can also send me an email for business inquires or just to say hi and share your thoughts to mywordsarearrows@gmail.com.

See you next week for another post!

Lily xo

Isla And The Happily Ever After Review

I cannot do anything. I cannot do anything other than gush out how much I love this book and the

other two books in this series and Stephanie Perkins in general.

Since it's Valentine's Day, or it was yesterday, I thought I'd upload the final review in my Stephanie Perkins reviews.

If you don't know who Stephanie Perkins is, then I don't know how you've been spending the time since Anna And The French Kiss came out. Living without internet or access to a bookstore or something.

Anyways, Stephanie Perkins is, in my most humble opinion, the queen of contemporary romance. She writes love stories like a goddess and I think she is one of the most talented story writers in YA at the moment.

If you haven't ever heard of Stephanie or her two other books, then you can see my review for Anna And The French Kiss (book one) here, and my review for Lola And The Boy Next Door (book two) here. I loved both of them equally, and so it's no surprise that I adored Isla And The Happily Ever After.

I don't think I can accurately sum up this book, so here's the goodreads synopsis-

Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to confront the challenges every young couple must face, including family drama, uncertainty about their college futures, and the very real possibility of being apart. 

Just trust me that this book is every bit as perfect and cutesy as Anna and Lola, and that it is absolutely one of my essential reads of EVER. So please go read it if you haven't already, so that I don't spoil you, but you can always go back and read my reviews for Anna and Lola in the links above.

***SPOILERS***

Ohmyjace. This book is the epitome of a Stephanie Perkins novel. It's cutesy, adorable, heart-wrenching and so perfect it literally made me feel like I would cry. I also read the book in three sittings, and probably in just a few hours.

Firstly, let's start with my favourite thing about these books. The setting. For those who don't know, I desperately want to go to New York, Paris and London, and this book was set in two of those places. I love that Stephanie is able to set three different stories in three different places and still have everything so connected. The three storylines converged perfectly at the end of the book, which was just perfect. I should have realised that the Winter Olympics mention was foreshadowing for Calliope, Cricket and Lola making an appearance, but I didn't. It was a really, really sweet surprise.

Also Anna and Étienne at the end. I think my heart burst just a little. I did not see that coming, however I'm so glad it did. I now am desperate for a follow-on book where we can see Anna and Étienne's wedding and their life. Basically I just want a novella of cutesy, domestic Anna/Étienne fluff. But I'm sure many other people do as well, so, Stephanie, if you see this, please? Pretty please?

Now onto the actual story. I wasn't overly fond of Isla at the beginning. I adored the scene at Kismet, where Isla was still foggy from the drugs after her operation. Everything she said was just hilarious, and their interactions were adorable. I loved that our first experience with Isla was one where she could barely narrate, let alone talk with her long-time crush. It was so interesting seeing her un-drugged character after that.

Personally, I found Isla a bit needy, due to her insecurities. I understand that was her character, but the way she used things like Rashmi against Josh to try and convince herself that he didn't love her was just plain annoying and a bit ridiculous. I didn't find her as fun to read as Anna and Lola, at some points, but thankfully, her character developed significantly by the end of the book.

I did, however, like Josh. I couldn't profile him, couldn't file him under any of my pre-existing character indexes I have for YA male love interests. I expected him to file under "popular-but-actually-really-sweet-and-not-at-all-interested-in-school-politics/the-social-hierarchy" but then after actually reading more about him, he also filed under "bad-boy-who-has-little-regard-for-rules" and "nerdy-comic-obsessed-cutie-pie". And on top of that, he was also hilarious and an artist. Stephanie Perkins has once again created characters that are so unique and real that I cannot file them under pre-existing titles. But I'll gush more about Stephanie's expert character creation later on. Josh was a really interesting character, and I think he fit really well with Isla. Their differences, in the end, were the thing that bonded them.

Reading this book honestly made me feel like I was living in between Josh and Isla. The first half, when they were still newly dating and very much in their own protected, safe bubble of new love made me feel light and happy and carefree. Endless pages and chapters of cutesy fluff and adorably awkward first dates. I felt like Isla did, half in shock, half in a state of euphoria. The optimist in me (yes, she exists, she's just very small and often overpowered by Miss Pessimist), told me nothing could go wrong, the whole book would be perfect, happy, in love characters with no painful unrequited love, break-ups or struggles. But I knew it all had to come crashing down at some point, and crashing down it did come.

I physically could not put the book down during the scene at the party with Josh's parents and all those famous, high-profile people. I knew something was going to go wrong. Isla had already hinted that she wasn't fond of the "whole life Josh had without her", which is pretty much what she said. I knew, that with her insecure nature and her unease around "Television Josh", and the act he put on in front of the cameras and for the sake of his dad.

And, everything did go wrong. I wished Isla would just shut up. I knew she was winding him up, still stewing over what the head of school said about her and Josh (remember that comment where she basically implied that Isla's affections for Josh weren't requited in the same way?), and through what she had previously said about not being sure if he really loved her. It really did feel like she was trying to get him to break up with her, or trying to make excuses to break up with him.

I think her reaction to everything Rashmi was really unnecessary. When I say I found Isla to be a tad annoying at times, this is what I mean. She knew Josh and Rashmi were together for a long time, she knew that they were pretty serious. And so I found it irritating that Isla got so jealous that she basically downgraded herself to a "placecard", filling a place Josh wanted to fill with someone he could think he was in love with. But at the same time as being really, really frustrating, this was prefect writing and brilliantly crafted. Trying to understand and explain Isla's mentality and reasoning here is quite hard, but when I was reading it, I got it. I understood what Isla meant and I got her twisted, loop-the-loop logic. I don't think I would react that same way as Isla, I really don't, but what was so spectacular about this book was that even though I'm not a whole lot like Isla personality wise, I totally understood her and was able to relate to her. Stephanie Perkins has this wonderful way of completely humanizing all her characters, which automatically makes them super-easy to relate to.

Kurt was adorable, and I was so, so thankful this book didn't turn into a love triangle situation. Any sort of romantic interest between Kurt and Isla would've been forced and completely unnecessary, and I'm so glad that it didn't come to that. I really liked Kurt, and I loved that Josh was completely accepting of him, and that he made a legitimate effort to get to know him and to interact with him in a way that was beneficial to everyone.

I also loved the storyline of Isla and her two sisters. As the oldest of three girls, I can confirm that with a few changes, those three girls were pretty close to me and my sisters. The dynamic between the three of them is really similar to our own, and the struggles the three of them went through relationship wise were really relatable to me, as it was a dynamic I'm all too familiar with, and I loved seeing it through Isla's eyes.

The end was probably my favourite, where Étienne, Anna, Cricket, Lola, Isla, Josh and Meredith all had dinner together. Despite absolutely loving every minute of that scene, a lot of the time I was thinking, "poor Meredith". She was like, the seventh wheel and that might've sucked, seeing as though she used to be in love with Étienne. Besides that, I'm totally up for a novella focusing on either Cricket/Étienne/Josh or Lola/Anna/Isla. I would love to see their friendship develop and grow, and they're all so cute together. I honestly cannot believe Anna and Étienne are getting married. I honestly need a novella about it.

The end, where Isla was reading Josh's new graphic memoir was a really sweet ending. I loved that he knew her so well, he was able to predict how she'd be reading it and he actually drew it in there. It was pretty meta. I also want a copy of the graphic memoir. I loved the ending almost as much as the beginning, and I'm so sad to let this series go.

All in all, Isla And The Happily Ever After was just as incredible as I knew it would be. It was fun, cute and perfect. I would highly recommend it, but I'm sure that's not new to any of you.

Let me know what you though about Isla in the comments, to my twitter (@lilypherondale) or to my tumblr, sherlock crumpets (the link is in the bar at the top of the page). If you want to contact me for business or just to say hi and you need more than 140 characters, just send me an email at mywordsarearrows@gmail.com, I'd love to hear from you!

See you next week for another post!

Lily xoxo 

All The Bright Places- Recommendation

Hey! So it's that time again- time for a recommendation.

Since my reviews often have spoilers and I don't nearly buy enough books to do a bookhaul every second week, I am reintroducing my recommendations. For those who are new to My Words Are Arrows, recommendations are where I discuss a book with NO SPOILERS and say my feelings on it (which are mostly positive).

So this week I'm going to recommend All The Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven.

Here's the goodreads synopsis- 

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

It also says that this is like John Green's writing. It's not. It's so, so, so much better. Where John Green seems to use the same storylines over and over and the characters are basic and used purely as accessory to their love interest, Jennifer Niven's characters are well developed in their own right, and they're all brilliantly unique.

This book is heart-wrenching and beautiful and perfect. It's beautifully crafted and spectacularly written. It's a contemporary with almost four hundred words but they fly by, and you get sucked into this world with these wonderful characters.

It does have some pretty heavy themes of suicide and mental illness, so if you're not so good with that sort of stuff, I would caution you before you read this.

All in all, All The Bright Places is incredible. I really, really enjoyed it, and I would definitely recommend. A solid five-stars.

(Also I would recommend getting the hardback. I don't normally buy two copies of books, but I simply could not resist the hardcover version. It's beautiful.)

Share your thoughts (with no spoilers) in the comments below, or shoot me a tweet at @lilypherondale or a tumblr ask to my tumblr, sherlockcrumpets. You can also like my facebook page here to see what I'm reading and see my posts in your feed! If you want to chat about anything, like ARCs and other business things, or just to say hi, hit up my email address at mywordsarearrows@gmail.com :)

I also have a brand-new header with my logo! That's right, I finally have my own logo. Let me know what you think about the new logo and header!

See you next week with another post!

Lily xoxo

The Book Of Ivy Review

Wow. This book was pretty much everything I wanted and more.

Today I shall be reviewing The Book Of Ivy by Amy Engel. I picked this up in a fit of impulse in Dymocks. I read the back, and was vaguely interested, and the cover and title already had me intrigued. Then I looked it up on goodreads, and almost choked on my tongue. 4.25 stars. For a book like this that I'd never heard of, that was massive. So I bought it, and I've never made a better decision.

The Book Of Ivy was just brilliant. No cheesy, insta-love, no typical YA "bad boy", no boring bits. I could not put it down, not even if I tried. I think I said I'd stop reading at chapter thirteen, but then continued on to chapter twenty. It was enthralling, however the main character was a bit annoying. I'll elaborate on that later. For now, synopsis time!

Ivy Westfall is the granddaughter of the man who lost a huge nuclear war. And ever since, the girls from the losing side have been married off to the boys from the winning side at only sixteen years of age.

Ivy, however, is special. After unexpectedly taking her sister's place in marrying the son of the President, a huge responsibility is shifted onto her shoulders.

The responsibility of killing him.

But Bishop Lattimer is not what Ivy expected. He's not cruel, not mean. Nevertheless, that doesn't change Ivy's fate. Bishop has to die, and Ivy has to kill him.

It was highly entertaining and I recommend it to anyone. This is for sure a five star read.

***SPOILERS***

Why. That ending. Just why. Anyways.

I really, really loved this book. I was captured by it, and I read it in a few hours total. Really the only issue I had with this was Ivy and how annoying she was. She was constantly saying things, and throughout the book I was groaning and saying "shut your mouth", "please stop" and "Ivy, no!". She said and did things that made me want to punch her in the face, but I suppose that was her character, and in this book for some reason, I was able to get past that. I did find, however, that she was receiving special treatment at certain points, because some of the things that she were doing would have surely set some people, including the President and Mrs Lattimer, on edge. However, I suppose it's no secret she opposes their family, and she is the President's daughter-in-law, so it just depends on the way you look at it. But that was the only real issue I had with it, but it was pretty minor.

I've seen a lot of people complaining in their reviews that there was nothing between Ivy and Bishop. I don't quite agree with that, to be perfectly honest. I think that just because they didn't get together at the start of the book, doesn't mean they couldn't be falling towards one another gradually. I think being married to someone like that, spending so much time together, you eventually will begin to get along. And Ivy and Bishop were compatible. They have lots in common; the fact that both their fathers are power-hungry and they force Ivy and Bishop into what they believe. I think that they were compatible on the level that they're working out what they actually believe, despite the brainwashing from the fathers. So I do believe that they were in love, but then again, I don't necessarily believe in "true love".

But Bishop Lattimer. *decapitated walrus noises* You, sir, can join my Fictional Baes List.I knew Bishop was going to be set up so the reader would love him. But I didn't anticipate that he would be the way he was. Bishop was just, in general, a great guy. He was respectful and kind, and even though his parents had brought him up the way they did, even though he was slightly abandoned as a child, even though the world he lives in is extremely messed up, even though he has every reason to be bitter and twisted and the stereotypical YA "bad boy", he's not. Not only is he not bitter, he actively tries to help. And I found it a real change from most of the other books I've read. Also I really shipped Ivy/Bishop, you can't stop me.

The love story in this reminded me a bit of These Broken Stars; in fact the whole book did. So if you liked These Broken Stars, I think you'll like this, too (also, I'm definitely going to buy the sequel to These Broken Stars and I'm definitely going to do a review so look forward to that if you're a fan!).

The world this story is set in is pretty messed up, to be perfectly honest. As I said in the synopsis, the girls of the Westfall side (the losing side) are married to the sons of the Lattimer side (the winning side). The losing boys are also married to the winning girls, but that's not focused on as much (hmmm... maybe I'd like a novella on the story of one of those couples? Just a thought...). I didn't hate President Lattimer. He wasn't creepy or blatantly evil, like President Snow from The Hunger Games. In fact, he wasn't even really that evil at all. Of course, the whole arranged marriages thing is horrific, but considering that this nation was on its way to death, destruction and etc and he managed to save them all. So I suppose I didn't exactly dislike him. But I didn't like Ivy's father, either. Neither of them had the right idea about how to rule, and to be perfectly honest, I'd prefer if everyone just chilled the heck out until Bishop gets to be President. Although, that's not really fair on him...

I really didn't like Callie, and I was so, so thankful that it wasn't her Bishop was marrying. She wouldn't have hesitated in killing him; he'd be dead in a flash. She was obviously very loyal to her father and his cause, and it annoyed me that she was so blind and power hungry that she didn't even recognize that the ideals her father promoted were different from the ones he was planning to put into play. I found her cruel and heartless, and especially when she and her father happily threw Ivy under the bus at the end of the book. They really didn't care about her as much as they cared about the cause, Callie especially. It was heartbreaking. But it was time for Ivy to realise that she didn't owe her family anything, and she was able to make her own choices. And that the only person who really cared about her and would put her before himself was Bishop.

I really enjoyed The Book Of Ivy. It was fun, fast-paced and really enthralling. But I'd love to know your thoughts. Do you agree? Disagree? Feel free to let me know in the comments, with a tweet to @lilypherondale or a ask to my tumblr, sherlockcrumpets.

See you next week for another post!

Lily xoxo