An Ember in the Ashes: Abuse & Slavery Sucks

Disclaimer *Review Slap is my personal opinion, I have received no compensation whatsoever in posting this review. Also title of post may fudge the actual title in discussion.*

**Due to the fact that everyone who matter's already reviewed An Ember in the Ashes I will mix it up a bit and make my review for shit's and giggles with songs!!**

 An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Out now!

 An Ember in the Ashes is set in a fantastical world, through which a resident of such a place would describe it as:

 I come from a land
From a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam

Arabian nights!
Like Arabian days
More often than not
Are hotter than hot
In a lot of good ways

Okay okay I kid. Please don't sue me Disney, I assure you I am poor.

The setting however does take place in a stereotypical middle eastern dessert except there's more white people. In a bustling city the reader is shown that this place is ruled with an iron fist. One of the main characters is Laia who is of the Scholar people. Her ancestor's were taken over by the more brute Soldier Clans that have enslaved her people for several generations now.
 Then there is Elias, a young man from the Soldier Clan who attends a school that teaches it's students how to be Masks AKA Neo Nazi's, or ruthless killer's; which ever description floats your boat.

He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it anymore obvious

Any-who one night Laia is at home minding her own business when she see's her big brother's drawings are of top secret Neo Nazi stuff. Naturally she freaks out and right when her brother tells her he won't get caught and everything will be okay; soldier's bust through the house killing their grandparents, arresting Laia's brother after a good beating and proceed burn their house down. Impeccable timing Neo Nazi's!

Laia manages to escape being raped, murdered and/or burning to death in her house. On the run she decides to seek out a Scholar rebel group to aid her in retrieving her brother. The Scholar group are not very nice but they're not Neo Nazi mean. After listening to Laia's plight they tell her they will get her brother out if she agrees to be a slave for the Neo Nazi School's headmistress to spy on her. This book has some heavy stuff in case you didn't realize.


 Now this Headmistress is so into being evil that even the Neo Nazi's are scared of her.

How evil is she you ask?

Just ask her son, who is the other main character! He is in his last year at the Neo Nazi school and is considered Best Student of the Year. Turns out that he hates it and just wants to leave. His attitude towards the School and Empire is nothing but disgust. His thoughts are not the norm, he was raised outside of the Neo Nazi hatin' life by peaceful nomads. He was raised by relatively decent people till the age of five when Solder's came and slaughtered his adoptive family only to tell him he is adopted and must return home to go to school.

Can someone say trauma?

To top off the exponential onslaught his mom is the Headmistress and totes hates him. She tells him upon meeting for the first time that she is upset Elias is still alive since she left him the desert to die after giving birth to him.

This is a reason to support Plan Parenthood.

Then a tournament is held to determine the next Emperor! With a prophecy thing that creepy minding reading, immortal monks keep foretelling! Will Elias raise to the occasion? Will Laia be able to save her brother? Will there be more trauma making the reader question the morals of humanity?

Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z! Bring Me My Book!

Real talk for a sec! I do highly recommend you read An Ember the Ashes when you get the chance! It had a plot that kept getting more complicated in a good way! At first I was concerned with world building which leads me to think that the second will just take off on the first page. In Conclusion, the hype surrounding this book is- in my opinion, worthy! 

Weekly Eye that Booty!

So here's what I have won over the past two weeks! 

-The Bitter Side of Sweet by Tara Sullivan

-The Unraveling by Laurel Wanrow

-Stone Rider by David Hofmeyer

-Crystal Kingdom by Amanda Hocking

-Surrounded by Crimson by Lexi Ander

-The Hybrid by Venus Morales prize pack!

Eye that Booty!

Book Booty that this!

 Ah, the creative names I come up with are getting dumber. :/
 Anyhow this is my take on In My Mailbox- with a less catchy name!

So this week I got:

• Forever for a Year prize pack!

  I was so excited to get this! The tote is well made and cute! Plus is came with some dark red sunglasses, which I needed. I had recently lost my last pair- that don't fly in Texas. I plan on reading Forever for a Year by B.T. Gottfred this weekend.

Review Slap Stack! The Hellions of High Street Series *Hellions not Harlots, although that would also make a catchy name...

Disclaimer *Review Slap is my personal opinion, I have received no compensation whatsoever in posting this review. Also title of post may fudge the actual title in discussion.*

 Scandalously Yours (Book 1)
 Sinfully Yours (Book 2)
 Passionately Yours (Book 3)
 by Cara Elliott
 On sale now
 Adult romance


  The Sloane sisters are a family of Polite Society. They attend balls and are pressured to marry up by their mother like most young women their age. These sister's each bare a secret that could not only ruin their reputation, but also the family name; each of them write and publish themselves with a man's name! (Le gasp!) Each book focuses on each sister in turn and follows her exploits on trying to lead a perfect life in the 1800s England while trying to be true to herself, and whatnot, but also hide the self that's real. Then they all try to not feel sexy urges, too. Cause you know if you want to kiss a dude your a total slut by 17th century English standards.

cover(s)

The Bad- If you have read one book of the series, you really have read them all. The only difference would be the character names. I read these books back to back and man I was feeling deja vu. It was cut and paste the same! It's like the author had a check list that she kept following while writing the series.

1) Sloane sister meets a guy that is higher up in English society and gets on her nerves yet cannot help but be attracted to him. Check
2) Dude pov shows that he is also equally annoyed by Sloane sister but whenever he thinks of her his pants get a little tight. Check
3) Guy finds out that the heroine is really the uber popular Society Issue Critic/Racy Romance Novelist/Poetry writer. Check
4) While succumbing to their passions the guy notices how pink the inside of the girls ear is and that's hot. Check
5) Offers to marry girl right after they bang cause he ruined her. Only to be rejected by girl for making such an offer. (Even though it's the 1800s and back then that's a good deal for a chick.) Check.
6) Some plot happens where there's running to catch the bad guy. Check
7) And they get hitched. Checky Check flipin' CHECK!

Whew! So I guess you have read the series if you read the checklist; your welcome.

  Now this is where I am gonna get serious. Throughout the series the sisters all recount how their late father documented various cultures and thus they had a 'different' upbringing, thus explaining their undercover careers that no normal lady would pursue.

  The reader learns things like how their father studied primitive cultures by visiting the tribes-people of Crete. This sentence sums up the series in this topic. I could go into more detail but that would make this review very long, and these books are simply not worth the time.

  Keywords: Primitive, culture, tribes-people and Crete

  Now let me precede in ripping it apart. I have graduated college with a BA in Anthropology. So I have based my academic career in studying culture's, human/primate behavior, forensic's and much more!

Primitive:
 That being said I do hope that the author was trying to make the main heroine's come off as snobby racist English girls because that's how it come out to me. First off, no culture should be considered 'primitive' for reasons being, when one thinks of the word 'primitive' you tend think 'simple' and/or 'dumb'. This is insulting because you wouldn't walk out of your air conditioned house, go up to a camp ground and tell people who are camping that they are 'primitive'. You would not also say to them, "You are so stupid, you could be sleeping in an air-conditioned house but instead you are sleeping outside like a pig."
 This is exactly what you are saying when you call another person's way of life 'primitive'. There are tribes in existence at this very moment. They are not stupid people. The environment they live in either calls for that particular lifestyle or it just works for them. It would not be economical to have cars in the middle of a desert with no roads would it? Or what about the Amish? It's not because they don't know better, it's just that's how they choose to live.

Tribes-people:
 In the first book, Scandalously Yours the main character says something to the effect of,  'the tribes people half were related to half of the island' (NOT a direct quote!). Let's define tribe- a group of nomads (travelers, never 'settle') numbering 20-50 people. I don't believe the author knows what a tribe is because if these people where in fact a tribe, they wouldn't be related to half the island. Unless there were two tribes. One would wonder, why would one be a nomad on an island? Well it's possible, it would depend on how big the island is. After all nomads go where the food is, so to speak. So how big is this island?

Crete:
  Well I will tell you! It's much smaller than Japan! Wanna guess where Crete is? Remember the setting is 1800s Europe! So where would 'primitive' people be? Africa of course!~

Wrong! :) Crete is an island off of Greece!

Whaaaaaa?! Greece? But there's like people there that are so not 'primitive'..........
Yes ladies and gentlemen Crete is the biggest island off Greece and has been considered the place where all the smart peeps go. In fact Crete has been regarded as the 'place to be' for over thousands of years! Ottoman empire- idea started in Crete. Venice, Italy lifestyle = Crete. Greece universities = CRETE.

 So I'm sure ya'll are thinking, 'But wait, if it's the 1800s wouldn't there NOT be any tribes in Greece? I mean their not known for tribes or 'primitive' culture. Also weren't the Brits heavily influenced by Greece?'

  And the answer is YES!
This makes no sense! I think I could have maybe looked over the author writing the norm ignorance of culture's had she not made it Crete. I mean it's really hard to get into the story when you have such a gaping plot hole.......

I mean come on Cara Elliott! You could have googled 'Crete' and been like 'Oh snap, I guess this the one place NOT to set a fictional primitive culture!'.  

The Good- Yeah that ship has sailed, then swallowed up by the plot hole.....



The Book- So if you only have a grasp of culture from from the 1800s, NEVER google things and are looking for a cut and paste read that screams "give me your money for little of my effort!" then The Hellions of High Street series is for you! :D

You may buy the whole series at your local Wal-Mart for $8 a pop!
So what are you waiting for? Go out and buy them all today!
Happy Reading!

Review Slap! A School for Brides: A Story of Madiens, Boringness, and man am I happy I do not live in this era!

 Disclaimer *Review Slap is my personal opinion, I have received no compensation whatsoever in posting this review. Also title of post may fudge the actual title in discussion.*

 A School for Brides by Patrice Kindl
 On sale July 14, 2015
 Ages 12 & up

 A School for Brides follows the lives of 8 girls of various ages from 12 to 19 at a boarding/finishing school to prepare them for marriage life. The school is however located in the middle of nowhere and thus many of the students worry as to how they will find a suitable bachelor. The reader follows the older protagonists of age 16-19 for the most part.

 I had received an ARC of A School for Brides and this is what the cover looks like.

It did have a sticker over it to show the official cover-

I do think the new release cover is beautiful and more pleasing to the eye. However for this type of book I prefer the review copy cover. It's cute and shows the books comedy and lightheartedness really well. I also love all the girls drawn, as I read the book I could pick out whose who and why they where doing the various things on the cover. 

 The Bad: So the setting and the genre of this book set it up in what may be the most boring time and place possible. I mean these girls just sit around sewing and doing things to pass time until they are married. The book itself actually addresses this in that some of the girls feel no passion towards their school projects like painting or writing because they know these things will most likely never really matter once they are married off. Now this isn't bad- it actually saves the book from becoming unreadable. I was just really hung up on how horrible living like that would be for me. Yes, I understand this is how many women had lived their lives, and that this mindset is common in history. However I just kept trying to picture myself living like this, and quite honestly all I see is me being the village's crazy hag or the town's suicide because everything was so boring in my life. So just that where clear, this is not necessarily a mark against the book, I am just explaining my personal feeling towards trying to place myself in the characters life's.

 The Good: Despite the boring setting and boring lifestyle these girls have, I was still captured by the whimsy and sometimes funny moments in the book. One of the main protagonist's Miss Emily Asquith often voiced what I was feeling while reading. She had said on multiple occasion's that she's bored or does not like how women are still restricted in many areas of life. With Asquith voicing the more liberal and non conventional ideas she was my link to connecting to the book. She made things more relate-able and more genuine to me. For example, at one point she explains to a friend that she understands her life to marry up in society and to serve for the rest of her life. Her only wish is marry someone who will somewhat relate to her or at be kind. She understood her lot in life, she may have not agreed with it, but accepted it nonetheless.

 And the Book: Overall I did enjoy A School for Brides. Once I got past the life a woman is suppose to lead in the setting, I was able to let the story entertain me. It was lighthearted and many time's made me laugh. I would recommend this for a quick light read as it's only two hundredish pages long.

This book comes out in July of 2015!

Another Day at Work

 Howdy y'all! Wow so this is my post within the year!! I am making progress! I am excited! Are you tired of these exclamation points?!!!!
 Okay so I know in my tiny passage of greetings I had expressed that I was an avid reader, that I like being around books and that is why I enjoy my job. You see what I do is that I go into various stores that are not specifically book stores but do carry books and I put popular titles out. So my day to day life has to do with organizing, putting out and returning books, so I am surrounded by books all the time which is awesome :-).
 However I don't get to choose what comes out in new release and I don't get to really request any specific books, I just put out whatever is shipped to the store. As I live in Texas the Lone Star State smack dab in middle of the big Bible Belt, a lot of the books that I put out are are titled 'Inspirational' but really are 100% Christianity propaganda books and Bibles. Now when I say Christianity propaganda I am talking about conspiracy theory's, paranoid and just the general wack-a-doodle mess. Take one of my personal favorites for example:

This book came out in, I want to say 10 months ago and has been selling pretty well which was a little alarming for me but then I was new to these types of books.
 I want you to really look at it. Notice that this book has a leather like spell book look going on. I am sure the author & marketers were not going for the Defense Against the Dark Arts feel but that's the first thing that came to mind when I first saw this little baby.
  I mean it's got the pseudo gold stamping and looks like it belongs on a Harry Potter movie set. I'm pretty sure these are the same people who would who where responsible for the Harry Potter series being taken out of my elementary school when I was a kid.

 I have always wanted to write about these 'inspirational' books I deal with everyday and so I plan on doing just that! Right now there are enough wacky books like this to do a whole weekly segment on!
So why not? Leave me your thoughts!

Grettings!

 Hello there! I am sure your barely glancing at my words trying to figure out where the heck you are on the web. Before you head back to Google or press the back button I just wanted to announce myself and this humble page!
 I am an avid reader of young adult and to sum it up I wish to create a book blog! Now I may deviate from time to time in reading content but I will for the most part be reading YA. I plan on posting book reviews, book theories and to be active in the book blog community. :)
Wish me luck!