Waiting On Wednesday [12]

Sixteen-year-old Hailey Tarbell can’t wait for the day she’ll leave Gypsum, Missouri, far behind, taking only four-year-old Chub, the developmentally-delayed little boy her cruel drug-dealing grandmother fosters for the state money. But when a freak accident in gym class leaves a girl in critical condition, Hailey feels drawn to lay her hands on the injured girl and an astonishing healing takes place.

Before Hailey can understand her new powers, a beautiful stranger shows up…just in time to save her and Chub from hired killers.

A desperate race begins, with Hailey as the ultimate prize: there are those who will stop at nothing to harness her gifts to create an undefeatable army of the undead. Now it is up to Hailey and a small but determined family of healers to stand up to the unbelievable and face the unthinkable.

Cooper Blake has everything going for him—until he wakes from a car accident with his football career in ruins and a mysterious, attractive girl by his side. Cooper doesn’t know how Samantha got there or why he can see her; all he knows is that she’s a ghost, and the shadows that surround her seem intent on destroying her.

No one from Cooper’s old life would understand what he can barely grasp himself. . . . But Delilah, the captain of the cheerleading squad, has secrets of her own, like her ability to see beyond the physical world, and her tangled history with Brent, a loner from a neighboring school who can hear strangers’ most intimate thoughts. Delilah and Brent know that Cooper is in more trouble than he realizes, and that Samantha may not be as innocent as she has led Cooper to believe. But the only way to figure out where Samantha came from will put them all in more danger than they ever dreamed possible.

On her sixteenth birthday, Anastasija Parker's present winds up being the shock of a lifetime. When her mom referred to her absentee dad as a deadbeat it was actually half true -- he's a vampire. And a king, no less. A king who wants his daughter to assume her rightful position at his side. But, thanks to Ana's mother, the blood of a witch also runs through her veins....

Too bad vampires and witches are mortal enemies.

With her parents gearing up for an all out brawl over her destiny, Ana's about ready to scream. But things get even crazier when a male witch and a brooding bad boy vampire start vying for her affection. Then the barely leashed tension between the vampires and the witches starts to boil over, and Ana has to figure out once and for all if she wants to become heir to her dad's throne. And deciding your eternal destiny is a pretty big deal for a girl who just wants to get through high school.

These all sound really, really, really interesting and I can't wait until the come out so I can read them! And, yeah, I noticed my choices are a little dark and highly supernatural... But that's my typa' genre, ya know? :)

Teaser Tuesday [15]

Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes the dead leave behind in the world . . . and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find dead birds her cat left for her. But now that a serial killer is terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, Violet realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved by her hope that Jay's intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she's falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer . . . and becoming his prey herself.

"She heard the musical ringtone of a cell phone, and even through the sound was far away, she instinctively patted her pocket to feel for hers and realized that she'd left it in the back of her car."
- The Body Finder

Review | Looking For Alaska

Title: Looking For Alaska
Author: John Green
Publisher: Speak
Pages: 256
Rating: 5/5

"Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-desructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. After. Nothing is ever the same.

Looking For Alaska can be described in one word. Amazing. John Green has a way with words that's just pure awesomeness. The way he described everything, created his characters, and wrote period was amazing. I felt like the characters were real teenagers in a real school in Alabama. They each had their quirks and personalities, and I personally loved each one of them. The emotions run high with this novel and quite honestly, it fits perfectly. It even makes you think about stuff that maybe you haven't thought of before. This novel is definitely my most favorite of any book I've read before. It's real, funny, heart wrenching, and heart warming. Overall I really recommend that older teens (for some iffy content throughout the book) read this book before reading any works by Green. You won't regret it!

Best funniest part:

"Last night- before they woke you up, I guess- they pissed in my shoes."

"Are you sure?" I said, trying not to laugh.

"Do you care to smell?" he asked, holding the shoes toward me. "Because I went ahead and smelled them, and yes, I am sure. If there's one thing I know, it's when I've just stepped into another man's piss. It's like my mom always says: 'Ya think you's a-walkin' on water, but turns out you just got piss in your shoes.' Point those guys out to me if you see them today," he added, "because we need to figure out why they're so, uh, pissed at me..."

Changes are coming...

Hey all. While on my break with the blog, I wanted to have some changes to the blog. Right now, it's vintaged themed and is called Darling Reviews. I was happy with that theme for quite awhile now, but it's changed. The new and final theme is basically me and what I like. No massive, confusing theme. And along with the design change, I'm changing the blog's name period. Secretly Captivated is the big winner. Wanna know the idea behind it? Hardly no one knows that I love to read books, it's basically kept under wraps (I know, I know!). So that's secretly. And the other part of it is I'm captivated by books! So it all makes sense, doesn't it? I hope so.

Nothing should change really. It's still going to be a book blog. It's still going to be ran by me. It's still going to be my main priority! I'm really hoping that you'll still be able to receive my post updates and stuff. I've changed my blog's name before, but simply removed 'read' that was in front of the current one. I'm trusting that you all will shoot me an email or tweet if this does happen! I'm also trusting that ya'll will stay put through the changes.

So, yeah, that's about it. All changes will be made by later today. I'd love to hear your opinions on the name change!

*Edit - I'm not changing my URL because if I do that, you will receive no updates whatsoever. It'll be like a completely new blog, and I don't want that. So new blog name = Secretly Captivated NOT Darling Reviews!

**Edit - Regular posts will be back as scheduled. The 29th.

Taking A Break...

I've thought about this for awhile. But instead of a week break, I'm having trouble getting back into reading. So I'm going to take a break for a little bit. Not months and months, that'd be overrated... but two weeks is what I'm goin' for.

I hope that ya'll will stay following me and be patient waiting for posts. I promise when I come back there will be a lot of posts. There are lots of books that need to be read, and at least one of them will bring me back to reading!

So, I'll see you guys March 29! I hope ya'll will stay put till then!

Review | Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers

Title: Some Girls Are
Author: Courtney Summers
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 256
Rating: 4.5/5

"Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard--falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumors about her and her best friend's boyfriend start going around.

Now Regina's been "frozen out" and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend... if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don't break them both first."

My thoughts:

Some Girls Are in three words: realistic, addicting, shocking.

Regina is that character that you can't help to hate, but you can't help to feel sorry for her either. The author portrayed that about the character perfectly. With every turn of the page, I found myself wanting her to get revenge on what they were doing to her. But then again, she was doing the same thing to them as well. Michael. He's the loner. The one people think is crazy and plans to kill the whole school. I adored his character. He was quiet, forgiving, and basically there for Regina either way. He wants to hate her, but another side wants her. The internal struggles with each character flourished.

The writing was strangely addicting. You wanted to think one thing, yet couldn't help to think of something so different. I loved that. The romance between Michael and Regina was weird, nevertheless, but it slowly turned into something so sweet I wanted it myself. Regina wanted to do everything to keep him safe, but she couldn't tell him. That was the hardest part of the story for me. I just wanted to scream, 'tell him already!' But in the end it all tied together perfectly and left on a note that should be read about more often.

Some Girls Are is a great book about lies being turned into something worse than white lies. The daily drama of highschool. And the meaning of forgiving. A great read for anyone.

Disclaimer: Borrowed from the local library.

In My Mailbox [27]

Waiting on Wednesday [11]

"When sisters Sadie and Zuzu Brooks move to Salt Lake City, they discover a secret room in the attic of their new house, with a sign that reads “Palace Beautiful” and containing an old journal. Along with their neighbor, dramatic Belladonna Desolation (real name: Kristin Smith), they take turns reading the story of a girl named Helen living during the flu epidemic of 1918.

The journal ends with a tragedy that has a scary parallel to Sadie and Zuzu’s lives, and the girls become obsessed with finding out what happened to Helen after the journal ends. Did she survive the flu? Is she still alive somewhere? Or could her ghost be lurking in the nearby graveyard?

"It’s been two years since Noelle disappeared. Two years since her bike was discovered, sprawled on a sidewalk. Two years of silence, of worry, of fear.

For those two long years, her best friend Tessa has waited, living her own life in a state of suspended animation. Because how can she allow herself to enjoy a normal high school life if Noelle can’t? How dare she have other friends, go to dances, date boys, without knowing what happened to the girl she thought she would share everything with? And then one day, someone calls Noelle’s house. She’s alive."



"CHARLIE DUSKIN loves music, and she knows she's good at it. But she only sings when she's alone, on the moonlit porch or in the back room at Old Gus's Secondhand Record and CD Store. Charlie's mom and grandmother have both died, and this summer she's visiting her grandpa in the country, surrounded by ghosts and grieving family, and serving burgers to the local kids at the milk bar. She's got her iPod, her guitar, and all her recording equipment, but she wants more: A friend. A dad who notices her. The chance to show Dave Robbie that she's not entirely unspectacular.

ROSE BUTLER lives next door to Charlie's grandfather and spends her days watching cars pass on the freeway and hanging out with her troublemaker boyfriend. She loves Luke but can't wait to leave their small country town. And she's figured out a way: she's won a scholarship to a science school in the city, and now she has to convince her parents to let her go. This is where Charlie comes in. Charlie, who lives in the city, and whom Rose has ignored for years. Charlie, who just might be Rose's ticket out."


"Terrified that her mother, a schizophrenic and an artist, is a mirror that reflects her own future, sixteen-year-old Aura struggles with her overwhelming desires to both chase artistic pursuits and keep madness at bay. As her mother sinks deeper into the darkness of mental illness, the hunger for a creative outlet keeps drawing Aura toward the depths of her own imagination—the shadows of make-believe that she finds frighteningly similar to her mother’s hallucinations. Convinced that creative equals crazy, Aura shuns her art, and her life unravels in the process. "

Review | Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves

Title: Bleeding Violet
Author: Dia Reeves
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 452
Rating: 4/4

"Love can be a dangerous thing....

Hanna simply wants to be loved. With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses, Hanna's tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas in search of a new home.

But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. As she tries to make a place for herself, she discovers dark secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she's far from normal. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen and no one is safe."

My thoughts:

Bleeding Violet is one of those books that take something that mesmerizes you and twists it with something much deeper than just a town full of monsters.

Hanna, the heroine, has a pill for everything you can think of. And probably more. Her views on everything was something that had you interested from the start. Her character was very likable and I felt myself being drawn in with her mental struggles with everything going on. Like the desperation to build a relationship with someone you love, but barely know. Fitting in somewhere you can't necessarily figure out. All that jazz, basically. And Wyatt, oh Wyatt. He's the love interest of Hanna. He's the tough guy who does what he's told and nothing more. But doesn't like that idea. The two's relationship was steamy and well played out. It wasn't too fast, and it wasn't fairytale like. They had their fights, their issues. It was normal and built up perfectly.

I loved the idea behind this novel. It had everything you would want in a supernatural book. Do you consider it a supernatural? Whatever, anyways. You have your love interest, the monsters, the mystery, the craziness (literally), and the magic. It tied in wonderfully. Even though I found this book really weird, it was so in a good way. I definitely recommend to anyone that loves this kind of stuff! :)

Disclaimer: Borrowed from my local library.