Book Review - Defiance

Defiance
Author: C.J. Redwine
Series: Defiance #1
Genres: Fantasy, Dystopian | Young Adult
Release Date: August 28th 2012
Publishers: Balzer + Bray
No. Pages: 403
Source: Borrowed
Rating:
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While the other girls in the walled city-state of Baalboden learn to sew and dance, Rachel Adams learns to track and hunt. While they bend like reeds to the will of their male Protectors, she uses hers for sparring practice.

When Rachel's father fails to return from a courier mission and is declared dead, the city's brutal Commander assigns Rachel a new Protector: her father's apprentice, Logan—the boy she declared her love to and who turned her down two years before. Left with nothing but fierce belief in her father's survival, Rachel decides to escape and find him herself.

As Rachel and Logan battle their way through the Wasteland, stalked by a monster that can't be killed and an army of assassins out for blood, they discover romance, heartbreak, and a truth that will incite a war decades in the making.

Book Review - Heist Society

Heist Society
Author: Ally Carter
Series: Heist Society #1
Genres: Mystery, Contemporary | Young Adult
Release Date: 9th Febuary 2010
Publishers: Disney Hyperion
No. Pages: 291
Source: Borrowed
My Rating:
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When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre.. to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie travelled to Austria.. to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own - scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving 'the life' for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster's art collection has been stolen, and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat’s father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it’s a spectacularly impossible job? She’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s (very crooked) history - and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

Book Review - I'd Tell You I Love You..

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You
Author: Ally Carter
Series: Gallagher Girls #1
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery | Young Adult
Release Date: April 25th 2006
Publishers:  Orchard Books
No. Pages: 309
Source: Purchased
Rating:
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Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, a fairly typical all-girls school-that is, if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses but it's really a school for spies. Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in seven different ways, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, or track him through town with the skill of a real "pavement artist"-but can she maneuver a relationship with someone who can never know the truth about her?

Cammie Morgan may be an elite spy-in-training, but in her sophomore year, she's on her most dangerous mission-falling in love

Book Review - We Were Liars

We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockart
Standalone
Genres: Mystery, Contemporary | Young Adult
Release Date: 13th May 2014
Publishers: Delacorte Press
No. Pages: 240
Source: Purchased
Rating:
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We are the Liars. We are beautiful, privileged and live a life of carefree luxury. We are cracked and broken.
A story of love and romance.
A tale of tragedy.
Which are lies?
Which is truth?
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just lie.

Book Review - I Am the Mission

I Am the Mission
Author: Allen ZadoffSeries: The Unknown Assassin #2
Genres: Thriller, Mystery | Young Adult
Release Date: June 17th 2014
Publishers: Little Brown
No. Pages: 432
Source: Review Copy - Little Brown
Rating:
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He was the perfect assassin. No name. No past. No remorse. Perfect, that is, until he began to ask questions and challenge his orders. Now The Program is worried that their valuable soldier has become a liability.

And so Boy Nobody is given a new mission. A test of sorts. A chance to prove his loyalty. His objective: Take out Eugene Moore, the owner of an extremist military training camp for teenagers. It sounds like a simple task, but a previous operative couldn't do it. He lost the mission and is presumed dead. Now Boy Nobody is confident he can finish the job. Quickly.

But when things go awry, Boy Nobody finds himself lost in a mission where nothing is as it seems: not The Program, his allegiances, nor the truth.  The riveting second book in Allen Zadoff's Boy Nobody series delivers heart-pounding action and a shocking new twist that makes Boy Nobody question everything he has believed.

Personal Pickings - Amanda's Life With Depression

Personal Pickings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to approach subject personal to us that has no link or connection to our bookish endeavors. Today, Amanda is talking about are personal battle with depression, how it's affected her life on the whole, her deepest, darkest moments and what keeps me going.

Book Review - I Am the Weapon

I Am the Weapon
Author: Allen Zadoff
Series: The Unknown Assassin #1
Genres: Thriller, Mystery | Young Adult
Release Date: June 11th 2013
Publishers: Little Brown
No. Pages: 352
Source: Review Copy - Little Brown
Rating:
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Boy Nobody is the perennial new kid in school, the one few notice and nobody thinks much about. He shows up in a new high school, in a new town, under a new name, makes few friends and doesn't stay long. Just long enough for someone in his new friend's family to die -- of "natural causes." Mission accomplished, Boy Nobody disappears, and moves on to the next target.

When his own parents died of not-so-natural causes at the age of eleven, Boy Nobody found himself under the control of The Program, a shadowy government organization that uses brainwashed kids as counter-espionage operatives. But somewhere, deep inside Boy Nobody, is somebody: the boy he once was, the boy who wants normal things (like a real home, his parents back), a boy who wants out. And he just might want those things badly enough to sabotage The Program's next mission