The Disney Book Tag

Hello fellow bloggers. I was nominated to do The Disney Book Tag by the wonderful Summer @XingSings (thank you so so much!) – I’m not even going to tell you to go follow her, because unless you’ve been book blogging for an hour, you’re bound to have found her already and clicked that “follow” button, am I right? I love Disney, so I’m sure gonna love doing this tag.

1. The Little Mermaid – A character that is out of their element, a “Fish out of Water”.

OMG, I just finished this book, so I’m gonna rave a bit about it: Ana from The Improbable Theory of Ana & Zak (Brian Katcher). – If you haven’t read this book, go pick it up right now! It’s fun and hilarious 😀 . So, poor Ana is literally a fish out of water when she is thrown into a comic book/sci-fi convention, with the King of said con, in the hopes of finding her little brother. A lot happens!!! 😀

2. Cinderella – A character that goes through a major transformation.

Juliette from the Shatter Me trilogy (Tahereh Mafi) comes to mind. She’s so lost and scared in the beginning of the first book and then by the third she’s totally comfortable in her own skin.

(Juliette fan art source)

3. Snow White – A book with an eclectic cast of characters.

I’m going to go with something totally different for this answer… the cast of An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes by Randy Ribay is super diverse and surprising.

I was super pleasantly surprised by the amount of diversity in this book 🙂 .

4. Sleeping Beauty – A book that put you to sleep.

Ok, it’s not really that this book put me to sleep, it’s more that it was so boring for some parts that I wanted to put it down… A Whole New World: A Twisted Tale by Liz Braswell… =/

5. The Lion King – A character that had something traumatic happen to them in their childhood.

Cinder from Cinder (Marissa Meyer) had something VERY traumatic happen to her in her childhood, so much so that she doesn’t even remember it.

(Cinder fan art source)

6. Beauty and the Beast – A beast of a book (a big book) that you were intimidated by, but found the story to be beautiful.

I was so intimidated by An Ember in the Ashes (Sabaa Tahir) when I got it, I don’t even know why, the book is not even 500 pages, but I have the hardcover edition and that book is huge compared to most of my paperbacks.

7. Aladdin – A character that GETS their wish granted, for better or for worse.

Maggie from The One Thing (Marci Lyn Curtis). All she wants is to see again, and she manages that, even if it’s for the worst possible reason…

8. Mulan – A character that pretends to be something or someone they are not.

I think everyone answers this, but here it goes… Mare from Red Queen (Victoria Aveyard). But to give an alternate answer, I’m going with Dahlia Moss, from The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone 😀 .

9. Toy Story – A book with characters you wish would come to life.

I’m gonna go for the obvious one here and say Queen of Shadows (Sarah J. Maas), because I would really like if Rowan, Aelin, Aedion, Dorian, Lysandra, etc, were real. I’m fairly certain that Aelin would not let me live for too long, because I would be unabashedly staring at her Fae Prince and her half-fae cousin.

10. Disney Descendants – Your favourite villain or morally ambiguous character.

Ok, I’m gonna drop a highly hated character here… I hate him too, I really do, but I honestly feel like he’s a great character and I think he’s more morally ambiguous than most characters that I could have said – because he never gets to turn around or anything like that. He’s BAD! Arobynn Hamel!

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And it’s done! Have you done this tag? No? Do you want to? Consider yourself tagged! 😉

Red Queen (Victoria Aveyard)

>>>>>  Nº 37 on My 2015 Reading Challenge –A book with a color in the title <<<<<

This is a world divided by blood – red or silver.

The poverty-stricken Reds are commoners, living in the shadow of the Silvers, elite warriors with god-like powers.

To Mare Barrow, a 17-year-old Red girl from the Stilts, it looks like nothing will ever change.

Then Mare finds herself working at the Silver palace, in the midst of those she hates the most. She quickly discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy Silver control.

I enjoyed this book so much! I was a bit worried because a lot of people on Goodreads wrote that this book felt similar to a lot of others YA dystopian books, or that they didn’t enjoy it. I did. As regards to the similarities between this and other stuff, sure, there are a few, but isn’t that kind of normal? Also, powers, a bit like The X-Men, which is kind of awesome!

So, Red Queen follows the story of Mare Barrow, a 17-year-old Red girl who finds herself serving the royal family and soon after discovers that even though she has red blood, she has a Silver power. From then on, she has to pretend to be a Silver raised as Red, live with the Silver Royal family, and even face the potential marriage to one of the Princes.

I really liked the writing style, and even though there are similar elements to other books, Victoria Aveyard put a few twists in there that no one could predict or expect, and let me tell you, they are heart-wrenching!

I liked Mare as a character, though I wished she wasn’t so quick to judge some situations… she trusts some people way too easily, and then those she should trust, she doesn’t… but she grows up a lot throughout the book.

I ADORED Cal. From his first appearance I liked him. I would have liked to read a bit from his point of view, because it sure would have been different from Mare’s, right?

The World building was fine, though here I have to admit that the similarities to The Hunger Games were a lot, that ship journey was way to reminiscing to Katniss and Peeta’s journeys by train. But I want to see more of this world, especially now that they “expanded” it.

I hope that the world will expand more on the second book, and that we see Cal and Mare evolve a lot more.

The powers were AMAZING! (Have I mention how much I LOVE The X-Men?!)… The only “trouble” I have with them is how this powers are inherited, Victoria clearly states that the kids get their father’s powers, just as they are, but it got me thinking… how?! They state that the powers are because of a mutation, their genes evolved, ok. So, the only thing that the father gives to its sons without recombination, is the Y chromosome, which only exists in males. So how? It doesn’t matter for the story, but it bothered me that the powers were that linear, because that would be so improbable.

And also, for a moment there I could have sworn that Maven not only has his father’s power, but that he got something from mommy as well! What do you think? Is it possible? Did you think the same?

*** Warning – this will contain HUGE SPOILERS ***

That twist though, right?

I will admit that I knew that something was coming, because I spoiled myself and read one of the last pages of the book, and went on Tumblr, so I knew that Maven would betray them. I did not see coming the how… and wow, that scene where Queen Elara control’s both Cal and his father and makes Cal cut the king’s head… WOW! =| I actually had to stand up, put down the book and go for a swim, that scene twisted everything inside me. It is one thing to be the villain, and plot and be generally bad… but what she did?! WOW! That’s a whole different kind of crazy and bad!

And Maven?! I remind you that I knew he was going to turn on them and still, while I was reading the book, I couldn’t help but really liking him. So, naturally, my heart was broken when he betrayed Mare, the Resistance, but most of all Cal, Cal really loved him, and he broke his heart.

And the way he manipulated Mare? I think he actually did like her, he just couldn’t stand to lose yet another thing for his brother, I guess. Though Mare’s romance with Cal was so brief that I was stupid when she actually believed that cal would betray his father and country for her. Not that he wasn’t man enough to do it, he’s just more of a soldier than that.

The Resistance felt a little underdeveloped for me. I kind of didn’t like that Mare was willing to trust them just like *that*, but I really hope that we get to see more of them on the second book, especially of her brother (who also has a power). I do hope that they get along with Cal somehow, because that is bound to be awkward!

Kilorn… I don’t like him. I hope he’s not the endgame for Mare, seriously, no, just no. Also, I want her with Cal, just saying.

Rating: 4.3 Stars