Review: A Kiss In Time by Alex Flinn

A Kiss In Time, by Alex Flinn, is a story about a girl named Talia and a boy named Jack. Jack is pretty normal by teenage boy standards, but Talia...

She's a princess from the 1700s.

Cursed by the evil witch Maldovia to prick her finger on a spindle before her 16th birthday and sleep until true love's kiss awakes her, Talia wakes up in the 21st century with Jack hovering over her.

"I couldn't help kissing her. Sometimes you just have to kiss someone. I didn't know this would happen."

I picked up A Kiss In Time at the library because the title caught my eye. Of course, my best friend (and kindred spirit) happened to be reading it at the same time. I think my subconcious saw it at her house and made me grab it at the library. Either way, A Kiss In Time was nothing short of AMAZING!

The concept is not only interesting, but very funny. Sheltered Princess Talia waking up in the 21st century. She actually takes more of a shock to the culture rather then the technology. Sure, busses are faster then the fastest carriage, but when Jack's ex-girlfriend yells at her over the phone, Talia thinks: "And strangely enough, she calls me a female dog." She is absolutely horrified about the way girls dress, and Jack is smart enough to take her to a modern 'party'. Talk about culture shock.

I loved it because Talia was far from perfect. She never shyed about how beautiful she is (maybe it's a princess thing?) and she acted... well, like a princess. Jack was also pretty awesome. Of course, he was a teenage boy, so he did do some stupid things. But he made up for them. They were both lovable as characters and I liked how it alternated points of view so that I could really get inside each of their heads. Plus, I loved how they fell in love.

I mean, spoilery aside, I really enjoyed the romance. It didn't make me want to gag myself with a spoon (and trust me, some books do). They fell in love at a pace teenagers would. Not like, a dark whirlwind of passion and darkness. I loved how when Talia got excited over something, Jack thought, "She's so cute. I wonder what it would be like to kiss her again." It seems more realistic.

Another reason, I think, why I was able to enjoy the romance of the book more was because it wasn't just about Talia and Jack's love. Jack had issues with his dad... and for some reason, watching him grow and having Talia help just made me so happy! It's the classic dad-wants-son-to-take-over-business situation, and Jack doesn't want to. In fact, he REALLY doesn't want to. And it's both funny and fascinating how diplomatic Talia is about everything. She's truly a princess.

I don't want to spoil the ending, but I LOVELOVELOVED the ending. It was nothing short of perfect (: So, I give this book 5/5 men swimming in bacon. Go read it!
EDIT: Blogger is being funky about letting me put in my little bacon swimmers. Apologies (:

Review: Fairy Tale by Cyn Balog

Pip knows everything about fairies. Fairy thoughts. Fairy dreams. Fairy motivations. 

Fairy weaknesses.

And he doesn't know it yet, but he's going to tell me them all. He's going to help me find a way to save Cam.

Fairy Tale, by Cyn Balog, is a book about a girl named Morgan and her best friend (who is also her super hot boyfriend) Cameron. Morgan is a self-proclaimed psychic--her visions always come true. Cameron is the all around great guy, captain of the football team, and general hunk. They've been eating paste together since they were five, and now they're both fast approaching their sixteenth birthday. Morgan has been planning a joint sweet sixteen, and it's going to be perfect. That is, until a strange boy named Pip shows up with a feisty fairy named Dawn--whom Cameron happens to be engaged to. Say what? Dawn has come to take Cameron back to the fairy world--Otherworld--to become King. Morgan won't let that happen. She'll fight to keep Cam with her at any cost, believing that's the way it's meant to be. But could Morgan possibly be wrong?

I started reading Fairy Tale three weeks ago, but accidentally left it in a friend's car. Not only was that bad because it was a library book, but it was bad because I wanted to keep reading it. I randomly thought about it throughout the day, thinking about the situation and the characters. Just randomly, I started thinking of this book. It was to the point where I NEEDED to get it back. So when I finally did, I finished it easily throughout the day. I loved it!

It's not too bad of a length (248 pages) and it's relaxing to read. Not really a beach book, but more of a 'lounge-in-bed-for-hours-and-forget-to-feed-the-cat' kind of book. Morgan, the narrator, is enjoyable. She's so completely a teenage girl--she worries, she cries, she laughs, and I found it easy to connect. One of my favorite things about the book was Morgan's tendency to use comparison to describe things. For instance, as she's trying to sneak into her math class (where the teacher doesn't like her):

"The entire class was staring at me. [Mr.] Tanner's look could melt faces a la the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is just perfect. I bet I could be Master of Pi from here on out and he'd still want to murder me."

She's a thoroughly entertaining narrator, and as she gets more stressed and emotional near the end of the book, I felt it too. I also like how the story was told in present tense. It gave more of a sense of, "I don't know where this is going to end, or how she's going to fix things." Because anything could happen.

This is the first book in a while that I've read that hasn't been part of a series, so the pacing was hard to get used to. One thing that Cyn Balog did that I really liked was end every chapter with a foreboding one-liner. I really liked it. Character-wise, I absolutely loved Morgan. I adored Cam. For some reason, Pip was hard to get used to. I think maybe because Morgan was resisting him so much, I was too. And I don't like his name haha. (This isn't the first time an awesome character has gotten a not-so-awesome name. In Kristin Cashore's novel Graceling, Po was AMAZING... I just couldn't stand his name). Pip WAS great, though. Watching the relationships between the characters change was certainly an interesting process.

All in all, I give this book 4/5 men swimming in bacon. I definitely recommend it!

With love, From Chelsea (:

Review: Poison Study by Maria V Snyder

My mom convinced me to read this book, and I finally did after putting it off for a long time. Boy, was I missing out!

Choose: A quick death . . . or slow poison . . .
About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve.
She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace -- and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.
As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting.
Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control.
Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear . . .

Poison Study by Maria V Snyder (which happens to be a really awesome name) is the first in a five book series, theStudy series. It follows Yelena, who is supposed to be executed for murder... and she's only seventeen. This book takes place in the alternate universe of Ixia. In the military of the north, it's set strictly. In the south, that's where the military hasn't set in.

Poison Study was absolutely amazing! It was thrilling, and Yelena is one of the strongest characters I've ever read. At first, I was thinking along the lines of "Um... this girl killed someone?" but as the story progresses and it ties together, I become amazed at how strong she is and the things she had to go through. So on my list of Favorite Fictional Characters, Yelena is VERY high up.

Another thing I loved about this book, other then the language (the way Snyder described everything totally pulled me in) was the romance. We're all secretly suckers for romance. Although it sounds strange, Yelena and (insert love interest's name here) had AMAZING chemistry. Sorry, trying to keep this as spoiler free as I can :)

All in all...

4 & 1/2 out of 5 men swimming in bacon.

Amazing book!

Now, any requests for books for me to review? That reminds me... I have three overdue library books. Snap.