Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another.

Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

This is an amazing book! I honestly don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. I remember marking to-read for the book a long time a go and being pumped to read it. Then, I kind of forgot about it. Sad, I know. So when I got it from the library I thought to myself, where did this book come from?

Celaena is a strong protagonist. She knows what she wants, and she isn't afraid to take it. No matter who or what gets in her way. I like that in a protagonist, especially a female one. It's rare in the fantasy genre to see kickass females, but when I find one, they're either poorly written, or absolutely breathtakingly awesome. I'll leave you to figure out which one Celaena is.

Requiem by Lauren Oliver

They have tried to squeeze us out, to stamp us into the past.

But we are still here.

And there are more of us every day.

Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings.

Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it.

But we have chosen a different road.

And in the end, that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose.

We are even free to choose the wrong thing.

Requiem is told from both Lena’s and Hana’s points of view. The two girls live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.

Wow. I read the last 200 pages in about 2 hours. (That's fast, even for me.) I wasn't all that impressed by this book. Delirium absolutely blew me away. Pandemonium was good. Not great, but good. But Requiem just didn't do it for me. I'm pretty disappointed by it, to be honest.

I was racing to the end of the book mostly because there was nothing that kept me reading all that closely. To me, Hana's parts were completely unnecessary. They didn't add anything to the story.
Maybe I am being a little harsh on the book, but it just seemed to me that Lauren Oliver just wanted to get the series over with and rushed through this book. There was no real ending, and there was no finality. It was just suddenly over.

All in all, I think I was just too impressed by Delirium that Requiem didn't stand a chance.

The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

WANTED:

One young woman to take care of four-year-old boy.  Must be cheerful, enthusiastic, and selfless--bordering on masochistic.  Must relish sixteen-hour shifts with a deliberately nap-deprived preschooler.  Must love getting thrown up on, literally and figuratively, by everyone in his family.  Must enjoy the delicious anticipation of ridiculously erratic pay.  Mostly, must love being treated like fungus found growing out of employer's Hermes bag.  Those who take it personally need not apply.

Who wouldn't want this job?  Struggling to graduate from NYU and afford her microscopic studio apartment, Nanny takes a position caring for the only son of the wealthy X family.  She rapidly learns the insane amount of juggling involved to ensure that a Park Avenue wife, who doesn't work, cook, clean, or raise her own child, has a smooth day.

When the X's marriage begins to disintegrate, Nanny ends up involved way beyond the bounds of human decency or good taste.  Her tenure with the X family becomes a nearly impossible mission to maintain the mental health of their four-year-old, her own integrity, and, most important, her sense of humor.  Over nine tense months, Mrs. X and Nanny perform the age-old dance of decorum and power as they test the limits of modern-day servitude.

This was a hilarious book. I was cracking up the entire time. My friends would look at me strangely, and I would try to explain it, but they wouldn't understand. Now I'm forcing them to read the book. Yay for (positive) peer pressure!

Really, the only reason it took me as long as it did to read the book was because I had so much homework.  But then again, I used this as an excuse to not to do my homework. :)

 

Scent of Magic by Maria V. Snyder

That was. Just wow. I love Maria V. Snyder. I've read all her books except for Inside Out and Outside In. This is probably in the top three of my favorite books by her (Poison Study and Storm Glass being the other two)

I liked that Snyder split the points of view between Kerrick and Avry. It gave a different perspective on their relationship and allowed for more plot to be covered.

Hunted, Killed—Survived?

As the last Healer in the Fifteen Realms, Avry of Kazan is in a unique position: in the minds of her friends and foes alike, she no longer exists. Despite her need to prevent the megalomanical King Tohon from winning control of the Realms, Avry is also determined to find her sister and repair their estrangement. And she must do it alone, as Kerrick, her partner and sole confident, returns to Alga to summon his country into battle.

Though she should be in hiding, Avry will do whatever she can to support Tohon’s opponents. Including infiltrating a holy army, evading magic sniffers, teaching forest skills to soldiers and figuring out how to stop Tohon’s most horrible creations yet; an army of the walking dead—human and animal alike and nearly impossible to defeat.

War is coming and Avry is alone. Unless she figures out how to do the impossible ... again.

If you're a huge High Fantasy fan like me, this is a great add to your bookshelf. (Though I recommend reading Touch of Power first)