Vampire Academy By: Richelle Mead

Title: Vampire Academy
Author: Richelle Mead
PAPERBACK
Amount of Pages: 332
Publishing Company: Penguin Group
Publishing Year: 2007
Geared Towards: Older Teens


Summary (Credits to Back of the Book): Liss Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with an unbreakable bond to earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest and most dangerous vampires-the ones who never die.

The Powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a Dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making her one of them.

After two years of illict freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Amacdemy, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. Rose will continue her Dhampir education. Lissa will go back to being Queen of the elite Moroi social scene. And both girls will resume breaking Academy hearts.

Fear made Lissa and Rose run away from St. Vladimir's-inside the Academy's iron gates, their world is even more fraught with danger. Here, the cutthroat ranks of the Moroi perform unspeakable rituals, and their secretive nature and love of the night creates an enigmatic world full of social complexities. Rose and Lissa must navigate through this dangerous world, comfont the temptation of forbidden romance, and never once let their gaurd down, lest the Strigoi make Lissa one of them forever...

Wdebo's Review: I first read this book, because 1) lots of ppl have already read/reviewed it and it was complimented immensly. 2) It seemed like the next step for forgetting about Twilight and finding another vampire novel to love, all I can say is I am soo glad I picked this book up.

Pro: The story was wonderfully written, it was like this really good artwork, the characters complimented each other perfectly and the landscape (story) tied it in very well. Rose is such a strong character, while Lissa was a "weak-er" character, the complimented each other greatly.

Con: Like I have said in previous reviews I don't really like it when they have a lot of mention about sex, I was very happy when they kept this to a minimum. And for some strange reason I really liked Christian, but it annoyed me that *spoiler alert!-skip to the part after I say no more spoiler!* he would leave Lissa right after some stupid thing that Rose said, he's trying to pass off as being a bad ass (pardon my language) but he is doing a horrible job of it. *End of spoiler*

All in all, if you liked Twilight I highly reccommend you read Vampire Academy, it is an amazing book that you are sure to heart! (I actually think it is a lot better then Twilight-srry Twilight fans!)

Grade: A-

Wdebo :)

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Books in the Vampire Academy series:

Vampire Academy [Click HERE for review]
Frostbite [Click HERE for review]
Shadow Kiss [Click HERE for review]
Blood Promise [Click HERE for review]
Spirit Bound [Click HERE for review]
Last Sacrifice [Coming December 7, 2010]

It Started With a Kiss

I know I've already reviewed it before but it was such a small part, and it didn't even have its own post so I'm reviewing it again!

Here is a small part of the first episode (It gets A LOT better!)-It Started With a Kiss Ep. 1 (1/5)



It Started With a Kiss follows the love story between Xiang Qing (Ariel Lin) and Zhi Shu (Joe Cheng). Xiang Qing has always loved Zhi Shu ever since she first saw him giving his speech. Zhi shu is part of Class A (The smartest class in the whole school) while Xiang Qing is in Class F (The "dumbest" class in the whole school). When Xiang Qing tries to give her confession/love letter to Zhi Shu, he rejects it by not giving it a second glance. While Xiang Qing pains, so does Ah Jin (Jiro Wang) who has been in love with Xiang Qing forever.

XQ thinks that all hope is lost for her romantic fantasy about her and ZS. But when her house gets knocked down by an earthquake, her dad and XQ move to her dad's friends house, and surprise surprise, her dad's friend is ZS' dad.

While living together XQ does whatever it takes to make ZS in love with her. In the end she cracks his hard heart and their famous taiwanese love story begins.

It Started With a Kiss is quite an old (2005) Taiwanese Drama, but it is the most famous, second to Meteor Garden (even older-2001). It is absolutly ADORABLE and is filled with some of the best romance I've ever watched in my life, and it is also HILLARIOUS. It's sorta sappy, but not as bad and as dumb as romantic comedies. (Can't you tell I hate romantic comedies-they are just so FAKE). Sure TDramas are kinda fake, but they are SOOO much better.

I love this TDrama and I hope all of you can watch it! :D

Grade: A+

Wdebo :)

P.S. I hope all of you have the chance of watching lots of TDramas in your lifetime! :D

Lucky By: Rachel Vail

Title: Lucky
Author: Rachel Vail
HARDBACK
Amount of Pages: 233
Copyright Year: 2008
Publisher: Harper Teen
Geared Towards: Preteens and up
Extra Info: Check out Rachel Vail's Website!

Summary (Credits to flap): It's all good...and lucky Phoebe Avery plans to celebrate by throwing an end-of-the-year bash with her four closest friends. Everything will be perfect-from the guest list to the fashion photographer to the engraved invitations. The only thing left to do is find the perfect dress...until Phoebe goes from having it all to hiding all she's lost.
Phoebe's older sisters warn her to keep the family's crisis totally secret. Unfortunately, her alpha-girl best friend looks increasingly suspicious, and Phoebe's crush starts sending seriously mixed signals. Phoebe tries hard to keep smiling, but when her mother is humiliated in Neiman Marcus while buying Phoebe that perfect dress and her father decides to cancel her party, she panics. How far will she go to keep up her image as a lucky girl.

Wdebo's Review: For some reason when I first started to read it, I thought it would be geared more towards older teens then younger. It was an ok book, not absolutely amazing but it wasn't the worst book in the whole world.

Pro: It was cute, in its own way, of the main character, Phoebe growing up a bit. There were also dashes of humor over the whole book.

Con: While there was humor, especially in the beginning, it was kind of dry and was really childish. It matures after a hundred something pages. Phoebe really annoyed during the whole books and wouldn't stop annoying me until around some pages before the book ended. I know that it was suppose to make you feel sorry for her family's financial situation, but the way she was whinning, just made me want to slap her over the head for being such a spoiled brat.

All in all, if you want an easy and fast read I reccomend you read Lucky.

Grade: B

Wdebo :)

Hana Kimi By: Hisaya Nakajo

Title of Manga: Hana Kimi: For you In Full Blossom
Author: Hisaya Nakajo
PAPERBACK
Amount of Pages: Varied usually around 100
Copyright date: Varied
Amount of books in series: 23
Geared Towards: Teens (13+)
Extra Info: Has been made into a Taiwanese Drama! (Super cute!)


Summary: Mizuki Ashiya a Japanese girl who lives in America has fallen in love with Izumi Sano, a Japanese high jumper who goes to the all boy high school Osaka Gakuen. So what's a smitten teenage girl to do? Dress up like a guy and hope you can get into the school of course!
When she gets there, the biggest shock of her life is that she and Sano are going to be room mates! Then begins the cutest love story of the ages while other guys start to question their own sexualtiy.


Wdebo's Review: Haha this is one of my favorite mangas and the very first manga I read, I read it because of watching my first Taiwanese Drama, 花樣少年少女, such a cute drama! The characters are so sweet and cute!!

Pro: Good characters that you just fall in love with! <3


Characters: Mizuki: The heroine of the story
Sano: The heroine's affection
Nakatsu: Mizuki and Sano's friend, who falls in love with Mizuki and believes he himself is gay.


All in all, if you have never seen a manga I believe this one should be the very first one you read!


Grade: A


Wdebo :)

How to Ruin a Summer Vacation By: Simone Elkeles

Title: How to Ruin a Summer Vacation
Author: Simone Elkeles
PAPERBACK
Amount of Pages: 233
Publishing year: 2006
Extra Info: The prequal to How to Ruin my Summer Vacation and How To Ruin Your Boyfriend's Reputation!

Summary (Credits to back of the book):

Moshav? What's a moshav? Is it "shopping mall" in Hebrew? I mean, from what Jessica was telling me, Israeli stores have the latest fashions from Europe. That black dress Jessica has is realy awesome. I know I'd be selling out if I go wtih the Sperm Donor to a mall, but I keep thinking about all the great stuff I could bring home...


Unfortunately for 16-year-old Amy Nelson, "moshav" is not Hebrew for "shopping mall." Not even close. Think goats, not Gucci.

Going to Isreal with her Estranged Isreali father is the last thing Amy wants to do this summer. She's got a serious grude against the "Sperm Donor" for showing up so rarely in her life. Now he's dragging her to a war zone to meet a family she's never known, where she'll be stuck in a house with no AC and only one bathroom for seven people all summer- no best friend, no boyfriend, no shopping, no cell phone...

Goodbye pride-hello Isreal.

Wdebo's Review: This book was very witty and charming it was so sweet and cute! I liked the story a lot, its nice to read about cultural shock once in a while.

Pro: Simone Elkeles' characters in this story are very funny, witty and smart. This is such a great funny and sweet story, I loved it!

Con: The characters can get a little annoying sometimes but just a bit.

All in all, it's such a sweet book that all of you should read!

Grade: B+

Wdebo :)

Perfect Chemistry By: Simone Elkeles

Title: Perfect Chemistry

Author: Simone Elkeles

PAPERBACK

Amount of Pages: 357

Copyright Year: 2008

Publisher: Walker Books

Geared Towards: Older Teens (14+)

Extra Info: I got the ARC so some of the information might be different

Summary: Brittany Ellias is the puts on a perfect facade to being the "perfect" girl from the North. But no one knows, except her best friend how messed up her life really is and even she doens't know the whole extent from a mentally disabled older sister to a crazy mom, life is not all it seems to the people who don't know the real Brittany. On the South side, is Alex Fuentes, a total bad boy and part of the blood gang. Though he looks mean inside he is a really good person who wants to go to college and make a future for himself, but has to stay back to save and protect his family.

When the two are paired up as lab partners in Chemistry both of them can't be more angry at their chem teacher. But after a while both finds each others good points and the classic love stories between two totally different people blooms, well they do say "opposites attract!"

Wdebo's Review: This is one of the best books I've read so far in '09 (true this is the ONLY book I've read so far in '09 but it is very good. I couldn't put it down! The beginning really captured me, which is hard to say, because many books, even really good ones, have really horrible or horribly boring beginnings, but this one didn't!

Pro: Excellent writing, the characters are developed very well, and you can totally tell their personalities and how they out just from the writing. The story is also well developed and the plot is interesting, yes people have written about stories along these lines but not exactly.

Con: Though the story is well written I thought it was a little rough for me, I understand that that is Alex's character and how is life is settled but, yeah. I am also not the biggest fan of the cover, but I know that the author has no control over that.

All and all, I really enjoyed this story and I think all of you should go out and read it now!!

Grade: A-

Wdebo :)

An appetizer mv and a big sorry!

Ok, I am so srry I haven't been on for like 2 or 3 weeks, but Ive been out for vacation and just got back!! I will try to get my review for Lucky, How to Ruin a Summer Vacation and Perfect Chemistry out soon, check back often!!!

So, for my chinese readers (I hope there are some out there!) Here is my new song obsession... 私奔到月球 by 五月天 ft. 陳綺貞, for those who don't understand chinese, I still hope you guys listen to it, it is so cute and sweet! (I have no idea what its saying either, I just know what the chorus is, *embarassed*)



Wdebo :)