Book Review (75).

Titanic Unclassified: Secrets Of The Titanic Revealed

by Alex Stewart

Publication: 15th April 2012

Publisher: Bloomsbury Australia

Pages: 64

Genre: History

 Age Appropriate: Middle-Grade +

Discover the secrets of the RMS Titanic!

Packed with original artefacts and fascinating facts, meet the passengers and crew, explore the ship, and find out what really caused one of the most famous sea disasters in history.

My Thoughts.

Although this book was extremely short (only 64 pages) I enjoyed it immensely.

Each page had a different topic to do with the Titanic like: passengers, facilities and the building of the ship, each page included artifacts relating to the page for instance menu's and accident reports.

There's nothing new here no new information or facts you didn't know about before but just a nice book especially for people who aren't too familiar with the story of the Titanic.

It was very well put together and thought out and the pictures that were chosen to be put in this book went really well together.

I would highly recommend this book for people just discovering the history behind the tragedy or if you're like me and just like collecting any books you can find on the ship a great addition to my book collection.

I give this 5/5.

A Big Thanks To Sonia @ Bloomsbury Australia. 

Book Review (74).

Titanic: Death On The Water

by Tom & Tony Bradman

Publication: 15th April 2012

Publisher: Bloomsbury Australia

Pages: 127

Genre: History

Age Appropriate: Middle-Grade +

Fascinating fictional retelling of the events 
that led to the tragedy of the Titanic, based on documents from the National Archives. 

A boy works in the dockyard where the Titanic
is being built, then gets a job on the ship. As he witnesses a series 
of mistakes, short-cuts and bad decisions, he becomes more and more 
worried about what could happen. But he’s preoccupied by his rivalry 
with a fellow ship’s boy and doesn’t realise the full scale of what’s happening until it’s too late..

My Thoughts.

As I've said before and to anyone who knows me I love anything to do with the Titanic, I don't know why it fascinates me so much but it does, and so whenever I see a new book or receive one for review, well let's just say I get a little excited.

 I can honestly say that in all the books I've read I have never read a fictional account of the tragedy and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it.

Billy is fourteen and through the encouragement of his father becomes an apprentice in ship building working alongside his father in the construction of the biggest ship the world has ever known the Titanic.

Tragically Billy father is killed while building the ship and he is now the man of the house supporting his mother and sisters, but Billy is scared and he doesn't want to help build the ship anymore instead he hears that they are hiring people to work on the ship when she sets sail so Billy goes for an interview and gets a job as a bellboy.  

Straight away he gets off on the wrong foot with a fellow bellboy George and it doesn't help that he's favoured by the Mr McElroy the Purser who's job it is to keep them in line or that he becomes Bruce Ismay's personal help.

He becomes friends with a Polish woman and her three children especially the youngest Anya who has a habit of running away and hiding in the ship and Billy is the one that always finds her, then after the ship has hit the iceberg he finds out that Anya is missing again and the ship has started flooding, can he find her in time? and if so will he survive?.

Of course we all know how this ends and I love the way that the facts that are known of that fateful night are woven through this fictional story that seems like Billy actually was there relating the story of that night.

A haunting and adventurous tale that's based in fact of the biggest and most famous shipwreck in history, a tragedy that fascinates people to this day.

I give this 4/5.

A Big Thanks To Sonia @ Bloomsbury Australia.

100 Year Anniversary Of The Sinking Of The Titanic.

Ever since I saw the 1997 movie Titanic I've been obsessed with anything and everything to do with the real thing, including collecting and reading endless books that all have the same information but still interests me and makes me extremely sad for all of the 1,503 passengers and crew who lost their lives.

I can only imagine what they went through and how scared they all were, so on the 100 year anniversary of the sinking I'll be thinking of all of those poor unfortunate souls who mostly just wanted to make better lives for themselves and their families.

And so to the Titanic and it's passengers who made history for all the wrong reasons.

R.I.P

April 15th 1912   

In My Mailbox (23).

In My Mailbox Is A Weekly Meme Hosted By Kristi The Story Siren

Review.

Winter's Light (Winter's Saga #2) - M.J. Hearle (Pan Macmillan Australia)

Brought.

Black Heart (Curse Workers #3) - Holly Black

Daimon (Covenant #0.5) - Jennifer L. Armentrout

Half - Blood (Covenant #1) - Jennifer L. Armentrout

The Werewolf's Wife  - Michele Hauf

Tangled Tides (The Sea Monster Memoirs #1) - Karen Amanda Hooper

Celtic Storms (Celtic Steel #1) - Delaney Rhodes

Immortal City (Immortal City #1) - Scott Speer

Pure (Pure #1) - Julianna Baggott

Book Review (73).

Choker

by Elizabeth Woods

Publication: April 2012

Publisher: Simon And Schuster Australia

Pages: 233

Genre: Mystery

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

Price: $14.99

Sixteen-year-old Cara Lange has always been a loner, even more so since she moved away from her best and only friend, Zoe, a few years ago. Cara mostly spends her time avoiding the popular girls who call her 'choker' after a humiliating incident in the cafeteria, and watching Ethan Gray from a distance, wishing he would finally notice her.


Then one day Cara comes home and finds Zoe waiting for her. Zoe's on the run from problems at home, and Cara agrees to help her hide. With Zoe back, Cara's life changes overnight. Zoe gives her a new look and new confidence, and before she can blink, Cara is flirting with Ethan and getting invited to parties. And best of all, she has her best friend to confide in again.

But just as quickly as Cara's life came together, it starts to unravel. A girl goes missing in her town, and everyone is a suspect ~ including Ethan. Worse still, Zoe starts behaving very strangely, and Cara begins to wonder what exactly her friend does all day when she's at school. You're supposed to be able to trust your best friend no matter what, but what if she turns into a total stranger?

My Thoughts.

This book had been on my wishlist for quite a while before I received it for review and I'm happy to say it was well worth the wait, it was a mix of murder, suspense and intrigue.

Cara and her family moved when she was in fifth grade taking her away from her best friend Zoe, year's later and she has no friends and is picked on nearly every day even though she tries to make herself as invisible as possible, all of that changes one day when in the cafeteria at lunchtime she chokes on some food and after being saved by her crush who happens to be the most popular boy at school she earns the nick-name Choker.

After a particularly bad day at school Cara arrives home and finds Zoe there , she has run away from home and although they haven't seen each other in a very long time it's like they've never been apart and Zoe stays in Cara's room while Cara is at school.

Zoe helps build up her confidence and gives her a makeover as well as listening to Cara whenever she has a hard day at school after being picked on, one night she is awoken by flashing lights next door and finds one of the girls who torments her at school is found dead in her backyard pool and then not long after that another girl who was most responsible for the bullying goes missing and it's also around this time that Zoe starts acting really weird  and Cara tries to spend her time away from her.

As the story goes on Cara starts to develop some self-esteem and becomes friends with her crush Ethan and makes some new friends buy Zoe doesn't like that and becomes jealous and her demeanor becomes erratic and Cara never knows what her temperament is going to be one day to the next.

One thing I could never in a million years  have guessed was the ending of this book it was definately a shocker and a fantastic twist.

All in all a great read that leaves you guessing right until the nail biting end.

I give this 5/5.

A Big Thanks To Caroline @ Simon And Schuster Australia.

Feature And Follow Friday (23).

Q: What is one book that you would be nervous to see a movie adaption of because you think the movie could never live up to the book?

Well one in production I'm wary about is the Mortal Instruments movie it's one of my favourite series and with the amount of troubles they've been having with casting, directors and deciding when to film the movie it has me worried.

And another series would be the Black Dagger Brotherhood I think they'd find it hard to cast any actors as the brothers.

Waiting On Wednesday.

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine where you can spotlight an upcoming release that you're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on....

Splintered

                                  by A.G. Howard

1st January 2013 Amulet Books

For sixteen years, Alyssa Gardner has lived with the stigma of being descended from Alice Liddell -- the real life inspiration for Lewis Carroll's famed novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. But cruel jokes about dormice and tea parties can’t compare to the fact that Alyssa hears the whispers of bugs and flowers ... the same quirk which sent her mother to a mental institution years before. 

When her mother takes a turn for the worse and the whispers grow too strong for Alyssa to bear, she seeks the origins of their family curse. A set of heirlooms and a moth tied to an unusual website lead Alyssa and her gorgeous best friend / secret crush, Jeb, down the rabbit hole into the real Wonderland, a place more twisted and eerie than Lewis Carroll ever let on. 

There, creepy counterparts of the original fairytale crew reveal the purpose for Alyssa’s journey, and unless she fixes the things her great-great-great grandmother Alice put wrong, Wonderland will have her head.

When We Wake

by Karen Healey 

March 2013 Little Brown's Children

My name is Tegan Oglietti, and on the last day of my first lifetime, I was so, so happy. 

Sixteen-year-old Tegan is just like every other girl living in 2027 - she's happiest when playing the guitar, she's falling in love for the first time, and she's joining her friends to protest the wrongs of the world: environmental collapse, social discrimination, and political injustice. 

But on what should have been the best day of Tegan's life, she dies - and wakes up a hundred years in the future, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened. 

Tegan is the first government guinea pig to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived, which makes her an instant celebrity - even though all she wants to do is try to rebuild some semblance of a normal life. But the future isn't all she hoped it would be, and when appalling secrets come to light, Tegan must make a choice: Does she keep her head down and survive, or fight for a better future? 

Award-winning author Karen Healey has created a haunting, cautionary tale of an inspiring protagonist living in a not-so-distant future that could easily be our own.

Greta and the Goblin King (Mylena Chronicles #1)

by Chloe Jacobs

13th November 2012 Entangled Publishing

While trying to save her brother four years ago, Greta was thrown into the witch’s fire herself, falling through a portal to a dangerous world where humans are the enemy, and every ogre, goblin, and ghoul has a dark side that comes out with the full moon. 

To survive, seventeen-year-old Greta has hidden her humanity and taken the job of bounty hunter—and she’s good at what she does. So good, she’s caught the attention of Mylena’s young Goblin King, the darkly enticing Isaac, who invades her dreams and undermines her determination to escape. 

But Greta’s not the only one looking to get out of Mylena. The full moon is mere days away, and an ancient evil knows she’s the key to opening the portal. If Greta fails, she and the lost boys of Mylena will die. If she succeeds, no world will be safe from what follows her back.

Fall Back (The Timewalker Chronicles #1)

by Emlyn Chand

3rd November 2013 

Terra Wade was made for a glamorous fairytale life; she’s popular, attractive, and knows how to flirt. Yet, none of these skills come in handy when she falls into the Grand Canyon and wakes up in another era. Adopted by a Hopi tribe, Terra learns she has the rare ability to walk through time. She was perfectly happy just being pretty. Now she’ll stop at nothing to find her way home. 

The tribe introduces her to Tornado Bill, a cantankerous cowboy who shares her strange power. He is the only one who can help but doesn’t seem to feel like it. Desperate, Terra enlists the help of Wick, a Hopi boy who’s even more stubborn than he is handsome. With such difficult companions, will Terra ever manage to find a way back to her own time? 

From the author of the acclaimed Farsighted series comes Fall Back, the first volume of The Timewalker Chronicles.

The Suburban Strange

by Nathan Kotecki

2nd October 2012 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Shy Celia Balaustine is befriended by a mysterious group of outliers called The Rosary at her new school, Suburban High. The Rosary exposes Celia to new experiences and ideas that help her break out of her shell. Soon though, Celia discovers something is not quite right at Suburban. Girls at the school begin having near fatal accidents on the eve of their sixteenth birthdays. Who is causing the accidents and why? Celia's own sixteenth birthday is fast approaching and she is inexorably drawn into an underground conflict between good and evil—the Kind and the Unkind—that is bubbling beneath Suburban High.