Juuli's Bookshelf

My copy of the book is from 1974 and has 32 pages. 
When I was a child I read this fairy tale countless times and I loved the illustrations. My favourite one was the picture of a port. Years later my mother told me that she'd thought it  a bit weird because usually little girls liked pictures about princesses and this book had several beautiful pictures about the Beauty. I guess I never told her how much I liked the sea and those gorgeous ships and how I dreamed about being an explorer or a pirate.

Amazing story and gorgeous illustrations.

This is a fantastic book. I was laughing my head off while reading it. The book was written by a French lady and it's about teenagers. What types of teenagers there are, how they behave and what to expect when one of them is in the vicinity. It's such a cool and funny book.

I don't actually know if it's translated into English but the original title is Comment élever un ado d'appartement?

I read it years ago and re-read it with a student of mine. Still a good book about Estonia in the 14th century.

Quite good, reminded me of Edgar Wallace's books. 
I didn't care much about Campion's humour.

Gorgeous cover of the Estonian edition

I'd been waiting for the perfect moment to read this book. So, finally, the weather was warm and sunny, I had my cold drink  and was sitting in the garden.  And after reading 10% ... I was bored out of my mind.

Some days later I tried again. This was torture. I read 20% and nothing happened. So disappointing.

Third try. I can do this. I'm ready. I can conquer this book...

At 32 %

I'm done.  I imagine this is worse than Chinese water torture. It's soooo slow, has pages and pages of description and nothing has happened.

I actually loathe Benny's family. Where's the grovelling? After years of bullshit, they own her some serious grovelling. And there's nothing, nada, zilch,.. because Frankie is such a "generous soul". Yeach! You are a fucking doormat, Frankie!

Bye, bye, The Promise. I hope to never meet you again.

Easy to read, highly addictive, and at times really disturbing. I read it as a horror novel but for others it will probably be an action packed young adult novel. 
The main character, Shane, loses his granny and has a huge fight with his father after the funeral. On his way to his granny's empty house, Shane notices some odd things - the weather is changing and the animals act strangely. A few hours later all the adults are dead and the kids have to find a way to survive in this new dangerous world. Shane and his schoolmates have to band together, make some really tough choices and later live with those. 
The main characters had depth. I liked how they had all those mixed feelings. It made everything more realistic. Also, they didn't always agree to each other, nevertheless these kids found ways to support each other and move on. And they weren't smug at all (look at the book cover), they were dirty, exhausted, numb, and lost. They had doubts but they didn't have the luxury to give up when over 60 kids depended on them.
This book was heartbreaking, gory, and as I wrote before very addictive. 
It is also free on amazon at the moment.

Long live alien porn!
Although this was a ridiculous story, I enjoyed it a lot. The planet and the natives were peculiar and some girls had a lot of guts. The story also had an interesting way to mate males with females. Oh yes, the purring blue giant aliens will always bring a smile to my face. :)
I'm definitely going to read the second book because I need a good laugh.

I've been sitting on this book for three weeks. Tomorrow I have to return it to the library. I guess it was time to read it. 
This was definitely not as good as the first book. Actually, it was quite an aggravating read. America turned out to be a hypocrite, Aspen was a manipulative ass, and Maxon, well I still don't know what to think. Author tries to show him as a mysterious hero, but for me it's not working.

Wow. This series was so good. I liked the characters, storyline, and the conclusion was just perfect. 

The end just blew my mind. I didn't see it coming.

I liked this book a lot more than the first one. Mac and Gina were great and I actually enjoyed all this teenage drama. I also liked that Cooper's story continued. But the book still felt like a Hallmark tv series and the introduction of the book was misleading. It implied that Mac's ex would have a huge role in this story. Think again. 
One big storyline was about cyberbullying and it was rather good but everything was solved too quickly and sugarcoated.

I've been feeling poorly for a couple of days now. My friend, whom I had said, how much I enjoyed The Golden Dynasty, brought me her e-book reader and told me to read this series because it reminded her of Kristen Ashley's book.
Well, the first two weren't very good. Actually, they weren't so bad either. The stories had potential but the storyline and the world weren't developed well enough. What the stories had, was a lot of sex. Some of this was quite hot but some was out of my comfort zone. I even skipped the paragraph about the officers' club while reading the second story.
I didn't expect much when I started Saved by Venom but was pleasantly surprised. I actually liked Dizzy and Venom's book. It had much less sex and the main characters communicated a lot. The story also had some action and a rather interesting storyline. 
I really hope the author continues with the series.

I really don't know why I tortured myself finishing this book. 

Entertaining but very similar to the first story. The recipes were great. I've already tried one and will definitely use some in the future.

The Estonian cover

I never expected to like it, but I did. I actually enjoyed it until about 80% mark, when our main character turned into a total ... well, I don't even have a word for it. I know she was only sixteen and had some tough decisions to make, but this was just ridiculous. What was she? A human weathervane?

I bought the first book years ago but now I'm really glad I waited until the last book was published before I started reading this series. 

After I picked up the trilogy I couldn't put it down until I'd finished the last book. It captivated me so much, I had dreams about Penryn and Paige. I loved Penryn's strength and what was done to Paige broke my heart. Their connection and the storyline reminded me The 5th Wave but it didn't bother me a bit. The angels were scary and the bond between Penryn and Raffe was amazing. It was born out of necessity and grew into mutual respect and friendship. The world was spooky and the story had some really heart wrenching moments also some hilarious ones like Raffe and Penryn bickering about Pookie Bear.
My only complaint is that I want more. I need to know what will happen to the characters next. The author tied up most of the loose ends but I still have questions.