Books and Sensibility

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YA Historical Fantasy

The Rose Society by Marie Lu

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  • Release Date: October 13th 2015
  • Audiobook Hours: 11 hours 7 minutes
  • Genre: Historical Fantasy
  • Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Son (Penguin)

Child sex trafficking, slave camps, genocide and a one sided love triangle ?

Yep, I must be reading a fantasy YA novel !

We’re back in Marie Lu’s vaguely Italian 12th century where the scarred children who survived a blood fever are known as malfettos and some malfettos known young elites have developed special powers. After the events of the last book all malfettos have been banned  from the city and forced into refugee camps for the safety of the city (stop me if you’ve heard this one). There is a lot going on in this book but most we follow along while our heroine Adelina Amouteru goes off to find other young elites outside the city.

The Rose Society has to be one of the most subversive and creative YA books I’ve ever read. I liked the first book in this series but this second book has really hooked me. Marie Lu is breaking a lot of the typical YA fiction rules and I am here for it.

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The Wrath And The Dawn by Renee Adieh

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May 12th 2015 | Pages: 388  | Genre: Historical/Fantasy | Publisher : Penguin Random house

I’m going to go ahead and reuse a .gif from my Red Queen Review

I mean we have the cold boy king Khalid, his protective cousin Jalal, the boyfriend Tariq  and then his best friend Rahim.

Let me back up here. This YA novel is an adaption of  the Arabian story of Scheherazade, a woman who tells the king a captivating story  for 1001 nights to keep him from killing her and they eventually fall in love. You know kind of a Netflix and chill situation.

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Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children

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  • Release Date: January 1, 2011
  • Pages: 352
  • Publisher: Quirk Books
  • Genre: Paranormal Historical



Jacob has always felt that his life was just ordinary, especially compared to the stories he heard from his grandfather about the halcyon days and Peculiar children during World War II. But these strange stories are just stories though, right? After the traumatic death of his Grandfather, Jacob begins to see things– things that can’t possibly be real. Soon, Jacob finds himself traveling to the small island of Carinholm, Wales,  the place of his Grandfather’s stories, where he discovers the past and present may not be that far apart at all….

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Book Review : The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski

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  • Release Date: March 4th 2014
  • Genre: Historical/ AU
  • Pages: 355
  • Publisher: Farrar Strauss & Giroux

Synopsis : As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.

 For 10 years the Valorians  have ruled the Herrani, a race of people enslaved in their own land. At a slave auction Kestrel, a member of the  Valorian upper class, wins the Herrani of her choice and in that moment of winning she will also lose everything and she doesn’t even know it.



The story follows Krestel as she makes her way through high society and  how it often clashes with her candor and affinity for music and art.  She is also at war with her growing feelings for Arin the Herrani slave and the truth he is making her see.



Honestly, I think Krestel had a bit too much going on conflict wise. She’s at a crossroads she can either get married or become a solider but  wants to do neither, she likes music but that is not thought highly of by her people. She struggles with what how to treat Arin in addition to feuds with fellow Valorians. I  think I would have preferred to focus on one of these conflicts. 



The big winner in this book has to be the forbidden romance that forms between Kestrel and Arin , overall that was what kept me reading during the somewhat slow build in the novel. I don’t want to give to much away about Arin, but his character development in the book was one I enjoyed reading. I wish that the novel focused more on him.…

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This is How The World Ends: 2013 Book Series Enders

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In 2011 we were newbie book bloggers not sure where to start in the new world of  YA fiction.  Soon we got swept up into four debut YA series that have followed us on our blogging journey. As Books and Sensibility grew these series continued to keep us guessing at how it was going to end.

Reviewing third books is hard, so we are going to review these final books as they relate to the series as a whole and give a final verdict on if we think the series is worth getting the whole box set or stopping book 1. And of course, these will be SPOILER FREE REVIEWS.

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Book Review : The Madman’s Daughter

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  • Release Date: January 29, 2013 
  • Genre: Sci-Fi/Historical
  •  Pages: 432
  • Publisher: Blazer + Bray (Harper Collins Children)


Synopsis : Inspired by H. G. Wells’s classic The Island of Dr. Moreau,The Madman’s Daughter is a dark and breathless Gothic thriller about the secrets we’ll do anything to know and the truths we’ll go to any lengths to protect. . . Sixteen-year-old Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself in London—working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumors about her father’s gruesome experiments. But when she learns he is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations are true.

. . . and you thought you had father issues. Juliet Moreau’s life has been world of hardship since her disgraced father, the mad Dr. Moreau,  abandoned her family leaving them to ruin. Years later a chance encounter leads Juliet to her father and his mysterious island inhabited by strange islanders.

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