Goddess Offerings (50) / Stacking the Shelves (32)

Would you look at that... this is the 50th Goddess Offering post, and this is my first Stacking the Shelves post for 2015. I might've been a little too caught up with other things that's why I rarely post. I will be more active in the blog in the next few weeks though! I've got some interesting things in store for my readers, so watch out for that!

Stacking the Shelves hosted is by Tynga's reviews! So leave a comment below and share your own haul!

For review:

Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits #1.5) by Katie McGarry
Goodhouse by Peyton Marshall

From Scholastic:

Ignite (Defy #2) By Sara B. Larson
Salt & Stone (Fire & Flood #2) by Victoria Scott
Limited edition Mockingjay movie-tie in edition bookmark
Scholastic desktop calendar

Bought for the signing:

The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Bought:

Soulbound by Heather Brewer
Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin
Unraveling Isobel by Eileen Cook
Crewel by Gennifer Albin
My Life Undecided by Jessica Brody

Thank you so much to Mira Ink, Penguin Random House and Scholastic Philippines!

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[Blog tour] Review: Cities by Carla de Guzman + Interview & Giveaway!

"What if in another universe, I loved you too?" That tagline just got to me enough to make me curious about this book. I'm glad I was able to read it! Interesting, fascinating, confusing and bittersweet.

Title: Cities by Carla de Guzman
Release Date: November 30th 2014
Published by: Midnight Books
Buy: Amazon | Createspace

Summary:

Celia has dreams.
She dreams of going to Seoul for that scholarship she never took, of leaving everything behind and moving to New York.
In all those dreams, she finds herself attached to Benedict, the boy she has always loved, who didn’t love her back.

Ben believes in parallel worlds.
Worlds where the things you didn’t do come true—worlds where he went to London and fell in love with Celia, where he shows up on the day she needed him most. He believes that dreams are glimpses into that parallel world, and it’s not a coincidence that Celia’s been having them too.

It’s the day of Ben’s wedding, in the middle of a typhoon in Manila. How will these dreams and unmade decisions change their lives? Will they bring them closer together, or just drive them further apart?

A friend of mine had mentioned this book in passing one day while we were waiting in line for a cab, and then a few days after I found myself reading this for a tour. It's destiny.

And speaking of destiny, this book talks about it and a whole lot more. All the possibilities, all the what-ifs. Worlds and cities. Various circumstances that could have led to varying outcomes. Broken hearts. Hope.

Celia is attending a friend's wedding, and she was plagued by dreams. Dreams of what could have been if she had decided to do things she didn't, visited places she could have gone to. After all, it was the wedding of her best friend, Vivian, and Ben, the guy she loved who broke her heart that faithful night back in college.

The idea of multi-verses is a tricky one to handle, and it could lead into a total disaster if not written well. Cities confused me because of the jumps from one dream to another, to a city, to another life, to what could've been but I enjoyed the ride with a few bumps, so to speak. That question, what if?, presents itself over and over in various scenarios and set-ups that a reader like me couldn't help but feel completely different emotions every single time Celia dreams. Her dreams made me feel hopeful, but reality doesn't, and reality is what Celia must face.

Carla de Guzman wrote a book wrapped in an interesting premise, a story that many can relate to.  The dynamics of friendship and the strain it is put through when love gets mixed in and the kind of love that you want but couldn't get. Unfulfilled, unreciprocated feelings? Check. Supportive friends? Check. Cool places and pop culture references we all know? Check. Being an Asian Pop fan, I loved the Seoul City story the most!

Cities pinches the reader's heart quite a few times while being immersed in a world within worlds. It's fascinating to see what these "could've been" are, from Celia's perspective to the various transformations her friends made in the places Celia's dreams took her. Definitely an interesting, quick read!

Content (plot, story flow, character):
Very interesting concept, but like I said, if you're not aware of the presence of multi-verses (and you will only get it once Ben mentions it), you will be confused very early by the jumps in every chapter. But you'll get it eventually, don't worry. I didn't like Vivian that much because is she really that kind and perfect? (In every "City", yes) And Henry, how I wish I know you more. I like him a lot! Ben? Not so much...

.5
Okay: Liked, but The Goddess demands more!

Book Cover:
I am so in love with the cover!

THE AUTHOR
Carla de Guzman (ck.deguzman@gmail.com) had horrible handwriting as a kid. That didn't stop her from writing, though. Riddled with too much energy and a vivid imagination, she started writing every midnight. She grew up with her toes in the sand and her bags packed and ready to go on adventures. Her books are chronicles of her journeys, with a little romance mixed in.

When she’s not sitting in a plane or working, Carla writes for her blog, Some Midnights (www.somemidnight.wordpress.com) and for When in Manila.


FOLLOW CARLA:
Blog: http://somemidnight.wordpress.com/
Tumblr: http://www.somemidnights.tumblr.com/
Archive of Our Own: http://archiveofourown.org/users/ckwhales/pseuds/ckwhales
Instagram: @ckwhales

-----

I had a chance to ask the author a few questions and here are answers. How fun would it be to read a book set in Camiguin AND Osaka? I need to read that book now.

1. First up: describe Cities in 3 words
Travel, Love, Multiverses

2. What inspired you to write Cities and why the idea of multiverses?
Cities started out as a short story, the concept of which I got from Throught Catalog. For a sadsack, no boyfriend since birth type like me, it was comforting to know that somewhere out there, there was a version of myself was braver, that could have the ones that got away. As the story grew, the multiverses began to have personalities of their own--meaning certain situations fit only in certain cities, making each city a different universe in itself.

3. Given that Cities is a story where multi-verses exists, do you believe in them? Given the choice, in what alternate universe would you like to be in if you can go to one?
It's an idea that I find incredibly fascinating. I love stories that explore what ifs. But I think totally believing in parallel universes would drive me crazy! If I could live in an alternate universe, it would be the one where I actually pursued musical theatre instead of writing. I'm still very much attached to that world, and I wonder what it would be like if I stayed on that path.

4. Which of the "Cities" is your favorite? Mine had to be the one in Seoul. I love how it's familiar like something out of a KDrama but still managed to have that bite of bittersweet kind of love.
I'm glad you liked the Seoul verse--a lot of it is a reflection of everyhing I know about Korean dramas (and I've seen a lot)! Ben's character espescially was fun because I had a good archetype to work with! But I have to say that the London story is my favorite, only because you really get to see Celia's relationships with the other characters, and how interconnected they are.
Plus I got to reference Doctor Who quite a lot, which is always a bonus!

5. Are you working on a new story other than Cities?
Yes! I'm plotting out a letter-driven story set in Camiguin and Osaka. That's all I have about it so far, because I'm still working out a lot of...kinks in the plot. It was originally going to be set in Bali, but maybe next time.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

WIN 1 OF 5 EBOOK COPIES OF CITIES BY CARLA DE GUZMAN!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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ARC Review: Golden Son (Red Rising Trilogy, #2) by Pierce Brown

Allow me to borrow that swear word often used in the book and use it in a sentence that will somehow express my feelings for this sequel, which I loved more than I ever did with Red Rising. That was bloodydamn amazing and traumatically painful.

I just suffered full emotional carnage of the worst kind at the hands of this book, and I wouldn't have it any other way. And when I say carnage, it was like I opened a box that held all my emotions and Pierce Brown took everything, the joy, laughter, sadness, pain, surprise and ripped every single one of them into shreds.

Title: Golden Son (Red Rising Trilogy #2) by Pierce Brown
Release Date: January 6th 2015
Published by: Del Rey
Source: Publisher (Thank you, Penguin Random House!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary:

With shades of The Hunger Games, Ender’s Game, and Game of Thrones, debut author Pierce Brown’s genre-defying epic Red Rising hit the ground running and wasted no time becoming a sensation. Golden Son continues the stunning saga of Darrow, a rebel forged by tragedy, battling to lead his oppressed people to freedom from the overlords of a brutal elitist future built on lies. Now fully embedded among the Gold ruling class, Darrow continues his work to bring down Society from within. A life-or-death tale of vengeance with an unforgettable hero at its heart, Golden Son guarantees Pierce Brown’s continuing status as one of fiction’s most exciting new voices.

I started reading the book partially clueless because I had no idea what has happened in the story. It felt like I was immediately immersed in Darrow's life as a Gold, and I had no idea how to piece the story back together. I abruptly noticed the time skip, and my brain was left questioning what the heck happened in the years that followed that got Darrow to where he was. As soon as I did, I knew I shouldn't have asked that question. Darrow has integrated well in the Gold culture, and if in Red Rising he's on the outside looking in, now he's smack in the middle of court politics, power struggle and a never ending fight for power as a Gold. And boy, was it cut throat, dirty and vicious.

Oh how he almost reached the peak of power, only to fall from grace so low you wouldn't think it was possible for him to rise up again. And rise up he did, but not without incurring losses, betrayals and facing heartbreak countless of times. Reading Golden Son and looking back at Red Rising's story made me feel like the first book was just a very long prequel, and then Pierce Brown threw everything in the reader's way in Golden Son.

Ah, Darrow. What else can I say about this boy? I liked how unconventional he is. In the eyes of everyone he's a hero, but you see more than a handful of moments when he's just like everyone else: a scared boy, unsure, confused, torn between the paths he had to take and burdened by a mission he was having doubts he can fulfill. Rash. Bold. Proud. He makes mistakes and suffers the consequences greatly. He doesn't know how to handle his emotions and relationship with Mustang. He couldn't balance being the leader of a war, still keep friendships intact and look over the people he cared for. Despite all the cruelty he has seen and has suffered in the hands of the people he now fights with, he's still capable of being kind. And no matter how powerful they think he is, he still can't save everyone worth saving. He's perfectly flawed, his journey as well, and I like it that way.

As if the suffering isn't enough with what Darrow has to go through for his vengeance, for war, for freedom, he has finally learned to deal with his feelings. For Victra, for Cassius, for Eo and for Mustang. Mustang. Ah, Mustang. I am starting to think that his story with Virginia is one that will never, ever get a happy ending. It's like one moment they're at the cusp of attaining happiness, only to be separated by circumstances that were bigger than the both of them. And I desperately want Darrow to be happy, and not only because there's a shortage of that particular emotion in this book. Pierce Brown's writing isn't only solid and strong in describing such a rich world, but he's also managed to scratch hearts and illicit raw emotions from his characters, beloved (like Sevro, Quinn and Roque) or not, with all the deaths, losses and goodbyes.

Just like how it was when Red Rising was released early last year, Golden Son has raised the bar very high for sci-fi novels this early in the new year. It will be hard to rival this book in terms of writing style, world building and story telling. Pierce Brown's superb writing has once again been made obvious by crafting another masterpiece that readers will devour in a flash. Golden Son revealed yet another facet in the life of Darrow, a tale of success and ruin amidst betrayals and lies with alliances made and broken, set in a grisly futuristic universe of warfare and politics. Unpredictable, exhilarating and stunning, Golden Son has wonderfully set the stage for the third book in the series by presenting to the readers one hell of a story, leaving them guessing what else is there in store for the third and last book, Morning Star.

It's impossible not to be affected by this book. It's intense, suspenseful, tragic, twisted. I literally broke down in tears from all the tension and stress thrown my way while I was reading this and after I finished. I couldn't take it. I was taken in for such a wonderful but heart wrenching, tiring ride. Bravo, Pearce Brown, you've done it again. And in a grander fashion this time around. Now can you please tell me how do I survive with an obliterated heart, waiting for the next book?

My rating:

Content (plot, story flow, character):

FIVE. BLOODYDAMN BUTTERFLIES. AND ABOUT A BILLION MORE.

Treat your heart as a sacrifice while you read this book. You will feel the absence of one at the end because of all it has to endure throughout the whole reading experience. I am not exaggerating. Pierce Brown has ruthlessly piled one tension-filled scene on top of another, snatched away well-loved characters, introduced ones that you'll like only to disappear, re-introduced hateful ones, and the readers just had to deal with all of it. Amazing.

Stunning: Worthy of a Goddess' Praise!

Book Cover:
*caresses cover* Hello there, gorgeous!

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