Fragile Spirits by Mary Lindsey

Caution, this may contain spoilers for this book, and the previous book in this series Shattered Souls.

What I Liked:

1. Alden and Lenzi! I was incredibly taken aback to open this book up to an unfamiliar character, having expected more of Alden and Lenzi's story, but I was SO excited to see them again, and their scenes were so powerful and so emotional and so heartwrenching, but then so happy, I can't enough and I loved it. 
2. Paul! I really liked Paul as a character and as a person. You don't really read any kind of love story from the guy's perspective, and it was really refreshing, and I feel like Paul was realistic and well-developed, while still being someone you could see yourself crushing on. (And I so did, he was adorable!)
3. Vivienne's characterization. I was really averse to her in the beginning, I couldn't get over how she treated everyone and such, and, having immediately loved Paul, I really felt like she didn't deserve him. However, and I really, really applaud Mary Lindsey for this, as I am generally loathe to change my opinions, the way in which she was written made her character arc so unbelievably believable...like, I'm still in awe of Mary Lindsey's authorial ability to make me love Vivienne, after hating her as strongly as I did. 
4. Supporting characters! It was really awesome to see Race and Maddi again, as well as Lenzi and Alden, and I loved how this book developed their relationship, and I feel like it really speaks to Mary Lindsey's world building skills that I really believed in the fabric of this world between the two novels. Plus, frankly, Race is just such a lovable rake, and I enjoy his scenes and his humor. 
5. Smith! I was so excited to see that he was being drawn as the principal antagonist of this work, as I really wanted more resolution of his character after having finished Shattered Souls. It was very unexpected, the way he was handles, but very satisfying. 
6. The style! This book was engaging, I read it in I think four or five hours, the writing is so accessible, while also being so very rich and vivid. 

What I Didn't Like: 

1. I will always want more Lenzi and Alden. Always. 
2. This was pretty short, about three hundred pages, and I wanted more! I mean, yes, the ending was great, but, you know, you always want more of a good thing. 

Final Thoughts: 

1. This really strikes me as more of a companion novel to Shattered Souls than a straight up sequel, or at least a hybrid of the two, but, either way, my point is that this was worthy of the book that preceded it. 
2. This is my third book by Mary Lindsey, and I always read the summary and think, "Hmmm, interesting, but, you know, I mean, ghosts...meh" because, I mean, ghosts have been done...but they haven't been done like this. I don't know what it is, but Mary Lindsey takes a topic area (like ghosts) that I'm not really interested in, and somehow makes it one of the most intriguing things on my shelf. She's a really great author, and I would highly recommend her works to anyone. 
3. I still prefer Shattered Souls, but this was an incredibly enjoyable read, it really drew me in, and it reminded me of why I love reading. 

Bite Size Book Rec #2

Who: Fans of classic literature, social novels, England, E. M. Forster, or modernism.

What: Howards End by E. M. Forster

When: Now! And always! Go forth!

Where: Your favorite book reading spot...I like my bed, with some tea.

Why: Because it is awesome! The language, the study of human understanding, the everything! Ah, it might be the greatest book ever written!

Into the Still Blue by Veronica Rossi

Caution, this may contain spoilers for this book and any others in the series.

Aaaaaaaah! The long awaited conclusion to Veronica Rossi's epic series, the previous two being Under the Never Sky and Through the Ever Night.

What I Liked LOVED:

1. Veronica freaking Rossi. I've said it before and I'll say it again: no author writing YA fiction today has as engaging a style as Veronica Rossi. I'm not even going to qualify that, it is hands down true. Every word she writes captures my imagination and makes me truly see what she is writing, and I cannot get enough. 
2. Aria and Perry. Ah, they were so good in this! I've loved them as a couple since the beginning, and I was happy to read their relationship throughout this book. I mean, of course, I LOVE dual-perspective novels, always have, so when you get that, then with a couple, then with Perry and Aria, it's awesome. They're the perfect relationship: they're sweet and cute (Night Crawler!), they're touching and romantic (when Loran lets Aria see Perry after Sable has had him with the mallet), and they're epic and tragic and heartfelt and one for the ages (when Perry boards the Dragonwing with Cinder), you know? I just cannot praise their relationship enough, it feels so real and true. 
3. Loran! I have been wondering since the beginning if this Chekhov's gun (or Chekhov's father, as it were) was going to appear, and, lo and behold, Veronica Rossi has done it again, AWESOME! It wasn't sappy or contrived at all, everything just worked. 
4. Deaths! I don't want to spoil you, but Veronica Rossi has done what few other YA authors dare to do: kill characters. Good characters, bad characters (morally, I mean, Veronica Rossi has never produced a badly written character), and some in between, not to mention the nameless extras that didn't make it. I found that she really, really made me believe the deaths, and the characters' (mostly Perry's) reactions to them. It really made my experience of this novel to know that death was so strikingly on the table. 
5. Aria. I feel like her character arc really, really made this novel for me. I have always really admired Aria as fictional character, and also really loved her as a person, and I feel like in Into the Still Blue, she really came into her own. It's hard to describe, but I feel like the new world is going to be built by a new Aria, compared to the Aria we met in Under the Never Sky. 
6. Soren. It's always nice to see a character develop into a human being instead of a fairly flat secondary antagonist. As much as I disliked him in the first book, Veronica Rossi really made me feel for him in this installment. Props. 

What I Didn't Like: 

1. Write more books, Veronica Rossi! We need more! Don't leave us devoid of your engaging characters, epic stories, and general awesomeness!

Final Thoughts:

• Epic. It was epic. The Under the Never Sky trilogy by Veronica Rossi is epic. Truly, as someone who has read epics, I mean that in every sense of the word. As an English major, as a YA lit fan, as a teenage/twenty-something girl, as a human being, this is epic. 
• I read Under the Never Sky when it first came out; I was in high school, and I remember raving about it to my friends in the locker room before gym class. I am so happy to have had the experience to read these books as they were released. 
• Just get this book. Get it and read it and love it, because it awesome and epic and you will love it. (That is the least contrived thing I've ever said)