Paranormal Reviews by 3 Book Nerds with an obession for Vampires, Angels and more....

Welcome to Paranormal Daydreams. The lair of three self-proclaimed book nerds who have a passion for things and men that go bump in the night. You will find what your heart desires here - Book, movie, TV series, fan-fiction reviews and maybe a bit more.

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you never know what delights wait for you in the dark....

I often check the free kindle books for something to read.  Often, I’m disappointed but when I bought Jenny Pox (The Paranormals, Book One) by JL Bryan, I wasn’t.  Jenny Pox is about Jenny Morton, or Jenny Mittens as she is known at school, who has a gift/curse where any times she touches someone else she gives them a disease and if the contact was long enough it kills them.  So Jenny goes through life, wearing gloves and avoiding contact with animals or humans until one day she finds her opposite.  Someone who heals instead of kills with their touch.  Someone she can touch without hurting them.  The description had me hooked.

I liked this book a lot, I liked the characters though Jenny does make a behavioral change in the middle of the book that seems awful abrupt, but looking back, it also made sense when I got to my favorite part of the book.  The characters are very life-like; in fact, I wanted to strangle Ashleigh several times.  Okay, more like the entire book but I’ve known too many people similar to her in that they claim to be perfect little Christians but are far from it.  To me a good book will give you a full range of emotions when you read it and this did it.  This book is definitely for those over 18 years old, though, as there is some sex and at least one incredibly strange sexual favor.  If you read it you’ll know which one I’m talking about and all I’ll say here is Ashleigh you are one sick puppy.

On Goodreads someone said that the book was horror rather than paranormal, a review which I hadn’t seen until I was more than halfway through the book and finally remembered to add it to my “currently reading”.  After finishing I thought yes, there were some horror-esque parts but I don’t think it’s enough to classify it as horror as I am really not into horror at all and those scenes that could classify it as such didn’t put me off enough to stop reading.  Not that this a huge thing, but I think it’s worth mentioning.  Do with it what you will.

The only problems I had with Jenny Pox was that the sex scenes weren’t what I’m used to, but keep in mind I read some pretty steamy stuff, as in needing a cold shower after reading, kind of steamy.  There was also what seemed like some foreshadowing that didn’t turn out to be anything; however there are 2 more books and the author just announced a 4^th is due to be released this fall, so maybe it will turn up again.  Or maybe I was just hoping it would turn out to be something more.

As I’ve said, I liked the book a lot but when I got to the last few chapters, I fell in love.  Hard.  Spoiler but not really as I don’t give details: you find out where Jenny, Ashleigh & Seth’s powers come from and I got chills and giggled with glee.  I may have rolled around the floor with weird little shouts of excitement as well.  I absolutely love it and wasn’t at all expecting it.  I’m super excited to get the sequel.

tl;dr I recommend it!!

Be sure to check out JL Bryan’swebsite for his other books and follow him on twitter!

We, as a whole, all the love JR Ward Series. We will be reviewing these in rotation each of us taking a book(s). So it only makes sense that we are all reading "Lover Reborn" the latest in the series. We are each planning to do a review as well. ^ ^ Stay tuned.

We will also be doing a bio for each of us. So you can get of feel of who we are and our likes and dislikes...

Sweet Daydreams - The Onnas

This book was good though the present tense and first person made it really hard to get into and there were parts near the end that it really rubbed me wrong but that is largely personal preference.  While I don’t have a problem with first person the present tense was really hard to get past for me.

Now, I had not seen any previews for the movies or anything and had surprisingly not seen spoilers on Tumblr, so I was completely expecting Katniss’ name to be picked and the whole story up to the reaping I was like blah, blah, blah I know Katniss is the tribute so let’s get on with it and was then pleasantly surprised to see that wasn’t how it went which is really what hooked me and kept me reading. 

At this point it may seem like I didn’t like the book but I really did.  Unfortunately the bad points stick out for me.  I loved the plot and it was interesting, despite losing some possibilities by being first person.  The dystopian society Collins has created is well thought out and it shows that she researches the effects of war on children.  While the descriptions weren’t what they could have been (this is a huge part of the POV and tense problems for me) you still get a good feel for the world and the terrible situation these people, especially the children, are thrown into.  I also must say that these books were a welcome change as fantasy doesn’t have to be rainbows, glitter and unicorns.  It’s good to get a book that isn’t a world you would be running around desperately wishing was real and that you lived there and got to experience it. What I liked was that it makes you think, or at least it made me think. 

The Hunger Games are the Capitol’s way of reminding everyone they are still at their mercy and subject to those 12-18 years of age being thrown into this revival of the gladiator’s arena.  It’s an interesting world that Collins has created and it is much more than a love story, though I feel like many may miss that that’s really the heart of it, which I suppose is partially why the love triangle feels a little forced to me.  More on that in the spoiler section.

The ending of the book was very “meh” for me, though.  When I was done I wasn’t that interested in going on to the next one until I looked up the synopsis for Catching Fire just to see if that could tell me why it was worth reading.  Only then was I interested in reading the next book in the series.

Spoiler alert!  The following 2 paragraphs contain spoilers!! You have been warned.

The “new rule” in a no-holds-barred fight really annoyed me.  As in I wanted to throw my brand new Kindle Touch across the room and went “oh come on!!” and nearly woke up everyone in the house.  It actually bugged me until it was revoked and I was actually happier.  I mean sure, that probably makes a huge *bleep* but it felt very "easy" to me until they revoked it.  However, when they "reinstated" the new rule because of the double suicide attempt with the poison berries, it didn’t bother me as bad as at first because at that point I could imagine those watching from the comfort of their homes in the Capitol being completely pissed off, whereas I didn’t get that feeling when the “rule” was presented in the first place.  Perhaps it was because at this point you get more of a feel for how the people of the Capitol who are watching play a part in the games because the games serve two purposes: to prove the districts are subject to the Capitol’s whims and rules and to serve as entertainment to the wealthy and frivolous residents of the Capitol.   So really in the end it made sense but at that very moment it annoyed me.    

The love story was a bit off for me, mostly on Katniss’ side of things.  As I said earlier the first person viewpoint was annoying, especially when Katniss noticed sincerity in Peeta’s words about them being a couple but then suddenly didn’t understand it.  You either notice it or you don’t, which can be the problem with using first person, it limits the story in cases like this.  I also felt that at the end I didn’t really care to read anymore about Katniss and Peeta’s "will they won't they" which was when I checked the synopsis for Catching Fire and decided it was worth continuing to read the series because the next one seems to be focused on the fact that a rebellion was brewing and she was the face for it, despite not wanting to be.

As for the movies I’m very excited to see it, though I really feel like it can easily be disastrous, especially with so many fans before the movie that have such strong ideas about what it will all look like.   I have a very vivid image in my head about the “girl on fire” as well as many other things.  Already Haymitch and Peeta are not as I pictured them but that doesn’t mean anything about whether it will be good or not.  While many things bugged me about the book I’m still going to read the rest of the series (I bought the trilogy on Amazon for my kindle) and am very excited to see the movie.

Rating: 3 1/2 Crescent Moons