Top Ten Tuesday: Worlds I would NEVER want to live in

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week they post a new topic that the participants come up with a top ten list for.


Hey guys :) This week's top ten is about book world's we'd NEVER want to live in, no matter how much we liked the actual story. Or about character's whose shoes we'd never want to walk in. I'll give you 5 of each.


World's I prefer watching from the outside

Fever series - Karen Marie Moning
After the walls come down and the dark fey enter the world, most humans die. No power, little food, lots of baddies... I'd be toast.

Blood of Eden - Julie Kagawa
Either donate blood to your local vampire or live on scraps and be backstabbed or killed by rabids? Again, I'm not the most physically fit person. I wouldn't make it for too long. And it's a very bleak and hungry kind of life.

Wither - Lauren DeStefano
To be kidnapped on the street and sold to some old rich dude to bear his babies, then die at 18? Can't imagine anything much more horrible. Pregnant over and over, then death *shudders*

Any totalitarian regime that restricts knowledge and burns books
Book burning is one of the worst things ever, and one that makes me the angriest. Destruction of knowledge, of beauty... no. Think Fahrenheit 451. Definitely not a society I'd want to live in.

Coldtown - Holly Black
I'm actually divided on this one. Living in a Coldtown is very dangerous. You can never get out. Law is barely existent.You need connections, and you need your wits. Vampire slaying skills are advisable. And yet... I do feel the allure of the place. The never-ending parties. Immortal creatures. Desire. Passion. I admit, I feel torn. In the end I wouldn't make it though.



Characters I wouldn't want to trade places with

Cassel from the Curse Worker series by Holly Black
If you can't even trust your brothers or you mom, life is bleak. Loving the daughter of the biggest crime lord around, also not good. Having an ability everyone wants to use to strengthen their own position? Yeah, better make sure they never find out...
Seriously, ma heart ached for Cassel :(

Karou - Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
The things that girl is forced to do... and her position is even worse at the end of that book than it was at the beginning!

Juliet - Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Slandered, beaten, bullied, put away into asylums and detention centers, isolated, forced into electroshock therapy... there's pretty much nothing that girl hasn't been subjected to. And her touch kills. Everyone. Apart from maybe the son of her worst enemy, who used to hold her prisoner.
Yeah, being Juliet truly sucks, despite her incredible powers.

Kaylee - Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent
That girl never gets a moment of peace. Some hellion always wants her soul, or her loved one's souls, or is possessing innocent strangers... her love life isn't a piece of cake either. Though I sure wouldn't mind spending some time with Tod ;)

Matthew Swift - Urban Magic series by Kate Griffin
That dude. Always in over his head! Made Midnight Mayor against his will. Always some crazy sorcerer or fey queen or other strange personified part of the city to deal with. Not to mention the annoyingness and not quite trustworthiness of his own Aldermen. Let's not even talk about the women in his life. The guy doesn't stand a chance. I feel this strange affection for him though. Can't resist the scruffy reluctant hero type with awesome magic, I suppose.


This was actually harder than I thought! What do you think of my picks, and what/who made your list?

Kick Butt Characters Giveaway Hop! (INT)

Hey guys and welcome to my stop on the 2nd Annualt Kick-Butt Characters giveaway hop, co-hosted by Good Choice Reading and I Am A Reader, Not A Writer. There are almost 150 blogs participating, so make sure to hop along in the linky at the bottom of this post!

As the title says, this giveaway is all about the characters who can kick some butt! And I definitely love them :) It was hard to make up my mind, but I'm offering you a choice of ONE of the books below. If you already own that particular book, you can also choose another one of the same series. The books will be ordered via The Book Depository, but please check the full rules below!! If there's another YA book with a kick-butt character that you really really want but isn't on my list, that can be arranged too ;)

So here's what I've picked out for you, my dears... click the covers for the goodreads description! 

Rules

• Open INTERNATIONALLY provided The Book Depository ships to you. Just fill out the rafflecopter, and please don't leave your email in the comments!
• One entry per person/household. Cheaters will be disqualified. I check  every single entry before picking a winner. Some cheating attempts I've come across are appalling.
• I will order the cheapest edition available from my location on TBD, so covers may vary. If you prefer ebooks, you can also choose that instead of a paperback, provided it doesn't cost more and that I can gift it to you on Amazon.
• You must be at least 13 or have permission from your parent to enter (blah).
• The winner will be notified by email and has 48 hours to respond, then I'll pick a new one.
• Once I've ordered the book, I'm no longer responsible for what happens with it.

That's it! If you have questions, put them in the comments or tag me on Twitter (@Butterfly_Ghost)  

Good luck, and keep kicking those butts as you hop along and check out the other blogs! ;)


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Non-YA Review: Dawn of Eden ('Til The World Ends), by Julie Kagawa

Release date: January 29, 2013
Publisher: Harlequin Luna
Format: Paperback, 368 pages

Goodreads description:
Dawn of Eden by Julie Kagawa

Before The Immortal Rules, there was the Red Lung, a relentless virus determined to take out all in its path. For Kylie, the miracle of her survival is also her burden-as a doctor at one of the clinics for the infected, she is forced to witness endless suffering. What's worse, strange things are happening to the remains of the dead, and by the time she befriends Ben Archer, she's beginning to wonder if a global pandemic is the least of her problems...


The following review is based on an eARC provided to me by the pubisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.


Review:
Since this is a novella collection rather than one of the short story anthologies I'm used to, I've decided to review each of the three novellas separately.

Julie Kagawa's Dawn of Eden was the novella I was most curious about, since I've never read anything by the other authors. I loved The Immortal Rules (you can read my review here), and this novella takes place a few decades earlier, when the Red Lung virus first broke out. You’ll pick up on a few more things if you’ve read the book (as well as a cameo appearance of one of my favorite characters), but it’s not necessary and anyone can follow along easily even if this is their first encounter with the series.
It's also Julie Kagawa's first ADULT story, and the shift in tone is noticeable. That being said, I think it's one of the best pieces of prose I've read by her so far.

The story follows Kylie, a doctor in training in D.C. fighting a losing battle against the virus. The country is in chaos, electricity, the internet, and any type of broadcast media have broken down. People are looting and killing each other in the streets, hospitals are overflowing with the dead. Kylie is constantly surrounded by death as she and her two interns do their best to ease the pain of the dying. And yet, despite all the bleakness and blood and death surrounding her, Kylie never gives up hope. She does not become immune to her patients' suffering. She believes that some of them might get better, and refuses to leave them and save herself. This inner strength and determination to fight to the last really made me admire her!

Enter Ben Archer and his injured friend. Kylie feels immediately attracted to Ben, but doesn't get distracted from their very desperate situation. When her dead patients eventually start to reawaken around her as rabid beasts, Ben has to own up to what is really happening and what role his friend had in it. He and Kylie set out on an adventurous journey through a country that seems deserted but could be crawling with enemies as soon as the sun goes down, following the hope that Ben's estranged family might still be alive and healthy on their middle-of-nowhere farm.

As I’ve already hinted, the bleak and desperate, apocalyptical atmosphere of the novel was palpable. There were also parts that made my heart hammer because I just knew something horrible was going to happen, but not exactly when or how! Definitely some major creep factor here! But apart from all that, I loved to see Kylie and Ben’s relationship develop. They are thrown together, but their relationship never felt forced and there were also no attempts to make them fall in love faster than was reasonable. The scenes between them were fairly explicit but well done – however, not YA. I was actually surprised by how explicit it was because I think of Julie Kagawa as a YA writer, but I didn’t mind ;)

Overall, I really enjoyed this glimpse at a time before society in a way reestablished itself in The Immortal Rules. The scenario and the way people reacted to the world going crazy around them felt very realistic to me, and I liked the pace – it wasn’t building towards one big peak but had several smaller ones with calmer moments in between. If you love dystopian/postapocalyptic settings with a little romance thrown into the mix, you should definitely give it a try! However, if you have a weak stomach and a problem with graphic violence, you should better sit this one out…

Have you read The Immortal Rules? Are you anxious to get a glimpse into the 'before' of the story? If you've already read it, what did you think of Julie Kagawa's first non-YA story? My curious mind wants to know :)

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews to showcase what books we got, traded or bought to clutter those ever-expanding bookshelves.

Bought but not yet read:

Born at Midnight, by C. C. Hunter
Demonglass, by Rachel Hawkins
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
A Beautiful Evil, by Kelly Keaton

I'm really late in buying The Night Circus, but I'm excited to finally read it! I've had A Beautiful Evil on the pile for a couple weeks but somehow haven't picked it up yet... I think I'll have to re-read the second half of Darkness Becomes Her first to get into the that world again. Same goes for Demonglass. I'm also curious for Born at Midnight because I'm a sucker for books set in boarding schools.

Books I won:

The Immortal Rules, by Julie Kagawa

The Poison Eaters and Other Stories, by Holly Black

Witch Eyes, by Scott Tracey

Blood Bound, by Rachel Vincent

Hunger, by Jackie Morse Kessler

Yup, I was lucky enough to win the Participation Post giveaway in Fiktshun 's Soul Screamers Reading Challenge :D I just got them in the mail today and now I'm really in a pinch for what to read first... ironically, the one book that I asked for and that didn't arrive yet is Before I Wake, the new Soul Screamers novel whose book birthday is today of all days...

In case you missed the SSRC, Rachel is also hosting a BIW mini-challenge on her blog! You can sign up for that here.

Finally, my current read:

I'm more than halfway in and probably gonna finish today. It's hilarious XD I love it! It's got some of my favorite comparisons and turns of the phrase ever. Not to mention the many death related puns ^^ I love funny morbid.


Have you read any of these books? What's new on your shelves?