Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier

What's going on homo sapiens! Today I'm going to be reviewing and talking about some book shit!

Title: Ruby Red
Author: Kerstin Gier
Rating: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎ (Yay for a four heart review!)

It is 1:32am my fellow book lovers, and I have just finished this gorgeous book! It did take me a little to get through it, what was it, three or so days? Real life commitments aren't fun. If I could just, sit at home all day and read, and not have to do anything at all -- I think that's what I'd call paradise!

Snapping back to reality, though, I finished Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier! And I'm super excited to be sharing my thoughts about this book with you guys! So, to begin, I guess I'll provide you all with a little synopses of what this book (trilogy) is about:

Gwyneth is sixteen years old (I guess this book and Alienated are considered Y(oung)A(dult) Fiction because Gwen and Cara are not even voting age! Boo! Your opinion about politics means shit you meagre and hormonal little wenches! just kidding!!) and she comes from a long line of women who are able to travel back in time! Ooh gripping! But not every woman in that blood line are time travellers, apparently the gene is present in every other generation... it skips a generation (Am I confusing you yet, I feel like I'm confusing you). So anyways, Gwyneth was raised to be a normal girl. She was raised thinking that she didn't inherit the gene, that her cousin Charlotte who was born a day earlier than her had inherited the gene. Obviously, a book being a book, and this is a book, things don't work out that way. Oh the irony. So Charlotte is expecting to time travel at any given moment. She has been feeling dizzy for days, and suddenly boom Gwen travels back in time instead! Except that's not all there is to this time travelling business. There is some huge mystery associated with the chronograph (a device created by a member of this secret lodge society -- I'm a little confused at this myself, so bare with me) -- and this device controls when, meaning what day, month, year of the past that the time traveller will be going back to. It was created to ensure the safety of the time traveller -- to ensure they don't end up in the middle of WWII, or somewhere during the plague, etc. It's a safety precaution. There are also 12 time travellers in all, and there's some business about completing the circle of the twelve! Which is supposed to reveal some hugely massive secret.

SPOILER ALERT (IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS BOOK AND DO NOT WISH FOR THE INTIMATE DETAILS OF THIS BOOK TO BE REVEALED TO YOU, THUS ULTIMATELY RUINING THE JOY OF READING THIS BOOK, THEN PLEASE IGNORE THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH OR SO! IF YOU'RE A LITTLE REBEL AND YOU DON'T GIVE A WHAAAAAT ABOUT SPOILER ALERTS, AND YOU'RE JUST SO BADASS YOU DECIDE TO READ, THEN GOOD ON YOU. IF YOU HAVE READ THE BOOK AND KNOW ALL OF THIS -- PLEASE COMMENT BELOW AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK. CAUSE I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK ASAP) Really long spoiler alert, but I just want to make sure you guys know what you're doing!

So, the book starts off with this very weird interaction between two unnamed people, who are upset and claiming they won't see this girl, but at least she'll have a normal childhood -- upon reading the entire book. I have come the conclusion, with my insanely accurate intuition that these people are Gwen's biological parents -- Paul and Lucy. I hope I'm right. I think I am, and I hope I am. I'm pretty sure I am right, though! Ugh I cannot pick up Sapphire Blue (second instalment in the Ruby Red Trilogy) fast enough!

Charlotte bothers the shit out of me, and so does her mother Glenda. I have never really disliked a character as much as I have disliked these two. Whiny. Whiny whiny whiny. I understand that Charlotte was raised to be prepared for this, she was taught how to fence, and dance, and ride a horse, and all that shit that was expected of women in the past, but my shit, you're not the Ruby, get over it, go home, and move on with your life man.

Everyone is so suspicious about Gwen's mom, Grace. Yeah -- they kinda should be. She's the one who hid Lucy and Paul from the guardians and the lodge people, and she also took in their child and lied about how she's her biological daughter, cause Lucy and Paul are Gwen's parents. Most likely. Probably. I think so.

I'm still really confused about all this closing the circle of twelve shit, though. What is the secret?! Give me the secret, I want the secret! But ugh, it's insane. Obviously Lucy and Paul know some shit we all don't know, and Gwen needs to stop following Gideon (her male time travelling counterpart) like a lost puppy. They're definitely going to end up trying to hide the secret as well. Shit. I need to pick up Sapphire Blue ASAP!

Moving on, what else is spoiler worthy? OH! The gift of the Raven?! Yeah, that's the fact that Gwen can see ghosts and shit, which is actually really cool. You're telling me you wouldn't want an adorable little gargoyle as a pet, that literally can't die because it's technically already dead? Immortal pets FTW! Plus, Ravens are usually associated with death and creepiness, so that makes sense.
I'm just not sure why Gwen is the "Ruby," why is each person associated with a type of stone? And a musical note, and a random word? sdfghjkl need answers *whimper*.

SPOILER ALERT IS NOW OVER! PLEASE CONTINUE WITH THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED BOOK REVIEW THAT I AM WRITING AT 1:55AM!

This book was published in English in 2011, by Henry Holt. But it was originally published in 2009 and in German, with the snazzy title of Rubinrot. It has since been translated into over 27 languages! Holy shit, Kerstin Gier, people love your shit! Not only has the series been translated into all of these languages, making it super popular in book form, but it also has a movie adaptation by the same name as its German printing, Rubinrot! Which I will definitely be watching in the coming days, which hopefully has English subtitles! Fun fact: I LOVE subtitles!

Overall, Ruby Red was such an interesting read. There were definitely moments of adventure, and the story line is interesting as hell. But I think the most captivating part of this book for me has to be all these missing pieces. Some people might be into this book just for the historical-ness of it, or the story line (a time travelling teenage girl who time travels with a good looking time travelling boy, yes please!), but if you're like me, you need those gaps filled in. I mentioned this quite a few times already in this review, but I really do need to pick up Sapphire Blue. Which I will be doing tomorrow! So hopefully in a couple of days' time I'll have another review up for you with more of my thoughts about the series. However, for all you readers of my blog who have not read Ruby Red (whoa alliteration!), when I post up my review of Sapphire Blue, I'll put up another blog post for you all to enjoy since the Sapphire Blue post probably won't interest you much, and will be filled with spoilers. I'd hate to ruin the second book for people who haven't read the first yet!

Once again, this blog post is now finished! If you guys have any comments about this book, or would like to talk to me about it more, tell me your thoughts about it: did you like it? love it? hate it? burn it in a fire? Let me know! Feel free to email me, or comment below, and I'll reply as speedily as I can!

Keep reading -- xoJ

(dis)order

What's going on homo sapiens! Today I'm going to talk about some upkeep/blog shit.

So as some of you may (or may have not) noticed, the layout of my blog has changed! I have very little html/css skills, but it appears that blogger likes to use templates that I have absolutely no idea how to work!

So, please don't stress if you see my blog start changing fonts, colours, layout, etc randomly and often. I'm just figuring out my flow. I want to present my ideas and thoughts and talk to you guys about whatever, in a way that blocks out distractions (due to ugly layouts or just general disorder), and is easy for you to navigate and read. I was a huge fan of the black on black I previously had for this blog (that lasted from the time my blog was created a couple of years ago, up until last night), but since this is a new year, and my new years resolution, yet again, has been to take my blogging seriously, I thought sprucing things up a little was in order. I'm still not sure the pink works. I'm generally not a fan of pink, but I can't help but feel that it makes everything work. Shit.


Anyways, to continue on with the theme of being productive and finally getting my behind in gear with blog stuff, and review stuff, and stuff i just generally want to discuss with the world. I have begun reading another book for me to review and talk shit about once I finish with it. So far, so good, and I'm enjoying it! It's Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier!

I purchased the entire series all at once from amazon (.ca, whoo canadian amazon) because of the fantastic reviews I've seen a ton of BookTubers have up on their respective channels. Almost all of the BookTubers I keep my eye on have in one way or another mentioned this book, and mentioned it's amazingness, so I thought I would just bite the bullet, pick up all three books in the series, and get on this time-travelling train! Shit, I'm on a lot of mf'n fandom trains lately. 

On a side note, I'm thinking about starting to add in reviews of books that I've been reading for school. I'm not entirely sure if the general public would really like my review of Shakespeare's As You Like It, or of H.G. Wells's The Time Machine (Which was kind of an excruciating read for me). I guess if anyone has any feedback they'd like to share about this, I'd be absolutely enthralled to hear it!

Have any of you guys read Ruby Red, or the entire Ruby Red Series? If so, get in touch and let me know what you thought about it!

P.S Invaded drops in five days. It's still FIVE DAYS AWAY. But it's ONLY five days away. I can't wait to get my grubby little hands on it.

Alienated by Melissa Landers

What's going on homo sapiens! Today I'm going to be reviewing and talking about some book shit!

Title: Alienated
Author: Melissa Landers
Rating: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎ (Yes, I will be using hearts instead of stars when rating my books. Books are magical, and I love them)

Okay, how do I start off this review blog post without giving anything spoilerish away. That's my biggest problem right now because all I want to do is unite with those people (hopefully reading this) who have read the book already, so we can talk about it and asdfghjkl about it.

Christ, Jessica, tone it down a little, will ya?! Okay, here we go. Cara Sweeney, sixteen going on seventeen, fiery with passion (her red hair gives it away), and pretty much at the pinnacle of academic success in her high school career. Sneakily managing to snag the spot of Valedictorian by retaking AP Calculus, Cara Sweeney's the top student in her high school -- meaning that comes with amazing opportunities... scholarship opportunities. What she wasn't expecting, was that one of these amazing scholarship opportunities happens to be that she was chosen by the L'eihr to host one of their students as a sort of.. foreign exchange program. Well, the L'eihrs are aliens, and Cara's not sure how she feels about it. She will host a L'eihr named Aelyx, where she will help him adapt to life on earth while he attends her high school for the year, and the next year after that Cara will be going to L'eihr herself. Earth and L'eihr are attempting to form some kind of alliance, that will benefit both planets. For Earth, L'eihr's ridiculous technological advancements are reason enough for an alliance, but the fact that they have an asheem that cures cancer? Bonus, right? And the L'eihrs have their own reasons for wanting an alliance with Earth. And this completely blows chunks because I can't spoil anything. I can't spoil a damn thing for you. I want to. I really do. But I just can't rob you all of the opportunity to delight in this book as much as I have.

So... That's the gist of it. It sounds interesting, right? Well, it's even more interesting when some $#!+ happens. I would be a super spoiler sport if I gave into my overwhelming feeling of ruining the entire book for all of you who haven't read it yet. So I'm going to do my utmost best... the very best I can possibly put forth... in order to not.. spoil... anything. *Shakes laptop gently* Get it together, Jess.

Melissa Landers is someone I have never heard of before. I have never read anything of hers before, in fact, I'm not even sure if she has anything else published. A quick Goodreads search later and I've come to the conclusion that her main, first, real thing is Alienated. And for this to be the first book of hers published, I think it's an amazing start. Alienated is going to be a duology, if I'm not mistaken, but I just might be, so we're going to say that Alienated is a series. The second book in the series is titled Invaded and it drops on Wednesday February 4th, 2015. The one thing I'm glad about? I just finished Alienated and Invaded releases in literally five days. Which is perfect, because I don't have to wait much longer to find out what in the fash is going on! (L'eihr L'humour) The book is extremely well written, I did get a little confused here and there with Point of View. I would finish one paragraph, and then start the next paragraph only to realize that the point of view has changed. There is no indication of who's pov it is until you actually start reading it, which was a little unnerving -- enough for me to mention it, but not enough for me to continue - so we're moving on!

This book. Like, shit, what else can I say about this book without delving into the depths of it and revealing all of the juicy things I want to talk about but can't *cry*. This book was riveting. I finished it in less than a day. This book was not put down, once it was picked up, and I'm not just saying that. I am not lying to you guys, I'm not metaphorically saying 'wow this book was so good that it took me a week to read but it felt like a day hurhurhur'... I literally read this in less than a day. I picked it up around 5pm? and I read non-stop until 4am. This book kept me on edge. This book completely blew my mind. This book was funny. This book made me love it, hate it, and shake it a little (gently of course, who would ever want to ruin that spine, but aJshskehtier AELYX... AND CARA... AND WHAT?!). The characters are real. I shared in their embarrassment, their excitement, their suspense, their awkwardness, and I enjoyed every single second of it.

I don't even know if this is considered a real book review? But this is all I have to offer you. So take it. Take it all. Read it again, if you have to. Just take it, let your mind soak it in, and then go down to your local bookstore, or your local library, and read this thing. Capisce? Because Invaded is coming out in five days, and guess what book is going to get reviewed after I read it? And you can guess what interplanetary train I'm going to be on for a while.


Choo-Choo!