A New Online Bargain Bookstore!

Hey all!

Bookoutlet.com just opened another online bookstore with a new 3D reading experience! It's pretty awesome! Go check it out!

Clean Teen Publishing!

Hey everyone! Go to Crimson Tree Publishing and check out their giveaway! Plus, they've got great books to discover!

A confusing (and tedious) existentialism novel that is blissfully short.

                                                "Superunknown: Of Fairytales and Grunge 
                                                                By: G.C. Huxley 
                                                           Published: July 7, 2014 
                                                                    138 pages 

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. In no way does this affect either my review or my rating.

                                                 Source Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Okay, I would normally start a review out by giving by telling you what the book was about, but I'm not going to do that this time. The reason for this is because I have no idea! This book was extremely confusing. It kind of just jumped right on in without any buildup whatsoever. The prologue made you think, "Okay. So the prologue is the buildup." But then you start reading the first chapter and it seemed like the prologue was there for no reason whatsoever. (Don't worry; at the very end, and I mean the very end, of the book you find out what the whole point of the prologue was.) 

So I'm just going to give a few thoughts on this book. First of all, the book is written in first person POV by a teenage girl named Emily, called Em. Em constantly said the word "whilst": "..whilst I'm in mid-thought.."; "..whilst we casually watch the students.."; "..whilst the fireworks exploding behind us.."; "..whilst almost laughing with myself.."; "..whilst typing on the keyboard..". It was in the book 36 times in a 138 page book. Now I don't know about you, but when I was a teenage girl, the word "whilst" was not in my vocabulary. 

One of the main characters in the book was names Eido and Em would constantly call him "Eidiot". Now I really have no idea why, but for some reason this aggravated me. She would call him and Eidiot both to herself and to other people and when she specifically called him an Eidiot to one of the characters (who is only known as the Strange Old Man) he acted as if he heard people being called an Eidiot all the time. I honestly have no idea why, but the lack of reaction from anyone when Em referred to Eido as and Eidiot confused me. Most of these people, especially the Strange Old Man, seemed to adore and practically worship Eido. If someone I adored was called an Eidiot, I would definitely have something to say about it. 

Please don't get me wrong; I didn't hate the book. There were aspects of it that I really liked. For example, this book was set in the 1990's, though sometime after 1994, as Em's friend Maddie told Em that Kurt Cobain had killed himself. I was a 90's kid. I started high school in the late 1990's, so I vividly remember (and deeply miss) the grunge age. The author mentioned numerous band from my childhood; Nirvana, Soundgarden, Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M. While Em and Maddie were walking down the street, they were drinking Jolt Cola (Remember that? Crazy stuff!) and passed by a movie theatre that was showing The Crow and Clerks. They went into a record store that was selling cassettes alongside CD's. I was thrilled to be reading about all of this; I taking a walk down memory lane. One of the quotes from the books said it all: "Grunge is apparently the music of now, of our generation.." Yes, it was. And I miss it. 

I also must say that I was rather jealous of Em's high school; they got recess! For me, elementary school marked the end of that blissful half hour. 

Overall, I did not enjoy the book as much as I thought, and hoped, that I would. It was very difficult to follow; characters would have conversations that either made no sense to begin with or would jump topics so quickly that you couldn't follow along.

Now, please keep in mind that this rating and review are of my own opinion. You may very well enjoy books with an existentialism theme. If you do, then this book is definitely for you, I, however, do not normally enjoy books with philosophical undertones. But again, that's just me. Luckily, it was only 138 pages. 

An odd fantasy adventure.

                                                                  "The First"
                                                             By: Lisa M. Green
                                                    Published: February 25, 2014
                                                                  326 pages

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. In no way does this affect either my review or my rating.

                                               Source Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I'm not entirely sure what to say about this book. It might be just me, it probably is just me, but I was confused by this book. With a lot of books that are set in a different world with different laws and ways of living, the authors at least explain a little what the world is like and how the world works. 

Not with this book. With this book. I was very confused about how the world Ms. Green created worked. I was confused on who the Shadows were, on how their marriage practices worked, and especially on how their hierarchy worked. I understood that the Primaries were in charge, but there were so many of them that I wondered how they came to any sort of decision. It was several chapters into the book before I finally started to understand how the world worked at all. 

From the very beginning of the book, you knew that something was wrong, that there was a lot going on in their little village that didn't usually happen. The people's acceptance of their leaders, the Primaries, insistence that nothing was wrong, that everything was just fine, angered me. In a world where it seemed survival alone was extremely difficult, these things that were happening, and they were very large, very important things, would have made me question everything and everyone. I don't think that I could have stood by and just believed what the Primaries said just because they had never led us astray before. There's a first time for everythingttttiuuu.                                                    . And who knows, they could have been lying about everything for a very long time; they were just very good at covering it up. 

I did like the protagonist, Rinni, and I very much liked her great-mother (grandmother) Ganni and her mate, Brahdon. They reacted much the same way that I would have. Her twin brother was a little hesitant, but I think that it was because he was just more cautious and he wanted to think things through before he just believed whatever anyone told him. Even if the person telling him these things was his twin sister. I did like that about him very much. 

Overall, I found many parts of this book slow, tedious and very confusing, it is definitely the kind of book that you need to read all the way through in order to understand everything that was happening. It's not the kind of book that I normally would read, although the description made it sound like it was exactly the kind of book I would read. Unfortunately, it wasn't. It was far too slow and confusing for most of the book. But like I said, maybe it was just me. 

Everybody needs a good romance every now and then! (Plus, there's ice skating!)

                                                     "Crossing the Ice" (Ice #1) 
                                                        By: Jennifer Comeaux 
                                                      Published: August 2, 2014 
                                                                  308 Pages 

                                                    Source Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. In no way does this affect either my review or my rating. 


Now, I usually go for the young adult fantasy and paranormal books, but who doesn't like a good old-fashioned romance every now and then? And watching the ice skating portion of the Olympics is a guilty pleasure. Let's start with a synopsis.

Courtney is an ice skater who has been preparing for pair skating in the Olympics with her partner Mark for 9 years since she was 12 and he was 14. At the beginning of the book, this year is her last shot as she is about to start college and Mark is planning on getting engaged to his longtime girlfriend and working in his father's auto-repair shop. Their trainers, a married couple named Emily (Em) and Sergei, take on as their new students Stephanie and Josh, a brother-sister pair skating team that is are from LA, rich and Courtney's (she's called Court in the book) and Mark's main competitors. Stephanie is your average rich girl- snobby, selfish and just a real bitch. Josh is her polar opposite. (Please pardon the pun.) He's kind, sensitive and talented in pretty much everything he does. (Except he can barely draw a stick figure.) This also happens to be Stephanie's and Josh's last shot at the Olympics as Josh will be headed to law school the next year and then to his secured spot at his father''a law firm in LA and Stephanie will be doing what she does best, being a snobby mean girl. Courtney and Josh end up falling for each other and try to fight it as both try to out the other on their way to secure the one open spot on the pairs-skating Olympic team. 

I loved Courtney. She was strong, determined and very talented. She worked nights as a bartender at a local restaurant in Cape Cod (where they all lived) and spent the rest of her time training. She lived with Em and Sergei after her parents moved to Boston when her dad got laid off and had to find another job. She loved to help out Em and Sergei by babysitting their toddler twins, Quinn and Alex, even though she was exhausted with her full schedule. 

Josh, her love interest, is what I consider to be every girl's dream guy- kind, sensitive, talented, rich and hot. You could tell early on that he was very much into Courtney, even though it took Courtney a lot longer then it did me to see it. It probably didn't help that her skating partner Mark kept being paranoid and suspicious and thinking that Josh was only being nice to her so that he could distract her and sabotage their chances at the Olympic spot. If only he could have seen Josh the way I saw him. (Sigh) 

Now, without giving too much away, I will tell you that while this book didn't turn out exactly the way that I wanted it to, it did have a happy ending. And I am very pleased with the way Ms. Comeaux ended it. She gave me closure yet still left it open for a sequel, which can't be an easy task to do! Overall, I loved this book. It kept me wanting to read more and reaffirmed my belief that everyone should read a romance novel at least once in awhile, even if it's not your normal genre. Great job, Ms. Comeaux! 

A magical and inspiring feel-good adventure!

                                    "The Ugly Princess: The Legend of the Winnowwood"
                                                          By: Henderson Smith
                                                    Published: February 20, 2014
                                                                  232 Pages

                                                   Source Rating: 5 out of 5 stars


I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. In no way does this affect either my review or my rating.



Okay, first off, this is EXACTLY the kind of book that I would snatch off the shelf if I just walked past it in a bookstore or library. I loved it! 
Princess Olive, the protagonist, was everything I wanted (and still want) the be when I was a little girl. She's a princess (what little girl doesn't want to be a princess?), she can talk to animals (everyone should want that) and, even better then the first two, she can turn into animals! What!? I would love to do that! 

But enough about childhood dreams. I can't get too much into the book in my review because if I do, I will give away every plot twist, every battle, every spoiler known to mankind. That's how much I loved it. So I'll just tell you what I thought. 
Like I said before, I loved Princess Olive. She was kind, generous, brave and didn't care how ugly she got, she wanted to help every animal she came upon. I probably should explain that part. 
Olive was the last of the Winnowwood, a race of all female magic users who used their powers to help heal animals. It was a wonderful gift to have. 

But with every good, there must be a bad. All Winnowwood were ugly. They had warts and boils and were just hideous. Every time a Winnowwood used their powers, they became even uglier, whether it was a new boil that appeared or a wart or whatever. The animals they helped saw them for their true beauty, but unfortunately, they were the only ones. So the Winnowwood lived in hiding in the forests with their beloved animals. The Winnowwood's power came from a small sixth finger in their left hands, which they called their crux. 

When the Winnowwood learned that witches were terrorizing the countryside with their evil powers, their kind and loving natures wouldn't allow them to stand by and nNot do anything to help. So they came out of hiding and defeated the witches. One of the last witches cast a curse on the Winnowwood and created a knife that when used to cut of a Winnowwood's crux, would cause her to be bautiful, but it would also cause her to lose their powers. The uglier a Winnowwood was, the more beautiful she would be when she used the knife. Well, all of the Winnowwood decided to use the knife until there was only one left, Olive. Olive had never met any of the other Winnowwood because this of course happened long before she was born. Part of the curse also stated that if a Winnowwood used the knife before she turned 18, then not only would she lose her powers, but none of her daughters would be born with the power of the Winnowwood. Olive's younger sister Rosaline, chose this path, but Olive wanted nothing more than to keep her powers, no matter how ugly she became. And she always had hope, because there was a legend that stated if a man fell in love with a Winnowwood while she was ugly, she would become beautiful and would still be able to keep her powers. 

Okay, okay, I can't go much more into the book because if I do, I will tell you  absolutely everything, 
and I can't do that. I want you to read it. You should read it. Everyone should. This is a book for everyone. It's got magic, beauty, love (I'm in love with Black Bart!), battles and, best of all, it has a happy ending. Who doesn't like a happy ending? The Ugly Princess was a fantastic book and I highly recommend it for everyone, especially girls. They'll see that with hope, courage and a little magic, anything is possible. 

These aren't your average witches and wizards!

                                                      "Brew" (Salem's Revenge #1) 
                                                                 By: David Estes 
                                                        Published: October 1, 2014 
                                                                     440 pages 

                                                      Source Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

                                              Buy, Borrow or Bin: Buy (Totally worth it.) 

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. In no way does this affect either my review or my rating.

Okay. Wow. Just wow. This book was so any things, but the thing that probably matters most is that it was fantastic.

So here's what it was about. The book follows a 17 year old foster boy named Rhett Carter. Rhett has had a rough life, but things are starting to look up with his newest foster family; he calls them his mom and dad, he has a younger foster sister that he adores, he met a girl, Beth, who he loves more than anything and who loves him in return and his best friend Xavier (who everyone called Xave) who he's known since he was 5 and they were both in the same foster home lives near him and attends the same school as him. Life is looking pretty good. Rhett's world is exactly like ours except for one key detail; witches exist and they are being persecuted and executed in what the press has termed "Salem's Return". Hundreds and possibly thousands of witches have been tried and either burned at the stake or, if that didn't work, drowned. The action in the book starts when "Salem's Revenge" occurs. The witches are pissed and they're not going to take it anymore. There are different witch covens, although in this book they are coined as gangs. There are the Pyros who specialize in fire, the Brewers who make potions, the Conjurers who summon things out of thin air, the Necros (guess what they do; yep, they reanimate corpses) and numerous others. Though they have never worked together before, all of the witch gangs come together, along with wizards (because apparently they're real, too) against a common enemy; humans. In one brutal and terrifying night, the witches, warlocks and wizards attack and slaughter the majority of humans all over the world, leaving few survivors that they later start picking off one by one. Luckily for many of the survivors, once the common enemy is mostly destroyed, the witch gangs separate again and their petty skirmishes over territory and whatever else it is that witches fight over, helps to distract them from killing everyone else, although they do kill many more humans in between. 

After witnessing the slaughter of his foster parents and seven year old foster sister, and not finding being able to find Xave and Beth, Rhett becomes a witch hunter, following the Necros for revenge because of a cryptic note written in blood and supposedly signed by Beth stating that the Necros have taken Xave. The only things that keep Rhett going are his dog Hex, who he found abused in a warehouse and being used for magical experiments by a witch and who now has magical powers of his own because of it (It's a magical dog! How cool is that!?), a 16 year old sharp toungued girl names Laney and her silent little sister Trish who he ran into in an abandoned Italian restaurant and are now traveling with him, and his burning need for revenge against the witches who killed his family and who took his best friend and girlfriend, as he never found either of their bodies. Also driving him is a spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, Beth and Xave are still alive. 

There is a lot, and I mean a lot, that happens in this book, from running into groups of evil witch hunters, most notably a group called The End, that kills almost as many humans as they do witches, to avoiding a siren (yes, they exist, too) who seems to have her sights set on Rhett. I can't get into much more detail about this book without giving too much away. Everything that happens to Rhett, Laney and Trish happens for a reason, all of which is revealed by the end of the book. 

David Estes managed to give me closure while at the same time allowing room for his series to continue on. Brew is definitely not for the faint-hearted, or for the sensitive stomach. There is a lot of death and blood and gore and a lot (a lot) of sadness. I cried numerous times during this book. My heart went out to Rhett and Laney and Trish; I just wanted to pull them all into a hug and have a good old-fashioned cry with them. Mr. Estes managed to evoke a lot of emotion into his book and really made his characters come alive. You will be cheering for the good guys and wanting to to bash the brains out of the bad guys. (There's a lot of that happening so I'm being literal when I say that.) 

Overall, this book was absolutely fantastic. I reccommend this book to anyone and everyone, although maybe not for younger children; I am not kidding when I say that this book is bloody and gory. But for everyone who can handle that, and for anyone who wants to read a fantastic book that mixes reality with fantasy, this book is definitely for you. I for one will be buying the second book as soon as I hit the save button. 

No Liquor Past 9 P.M. For Little Rock!

Okay, get this. The Little Rock Board of Directors is set to vote on a new ordinance that will require all restaurants and bars whose primary income is liquor to close their restaurants at 7 P.M. and their bars at 9 P.M. All bars and clubs will be required to close at 2 A.M. instead of their normal 5 A.M. WHAT?!?! Whose brilliant plan was that?! I know we're in the Bible Belt but really, this is just pushing it to the extreme. What about the people who don't get off work until really late and want to go out for a drink? Now they'll have to go home to have a drink instead of going out and relaxing and socializing. What does everyone think of this possible new ordinance? Do you think that it's a good idea? A bad idea? Are you indifferent and don't care what the outcome of the vote is? Tell me what your thoughts are.

The Frustrating Fact

Okay, let me ask you this question. How many people out there have someone in their life that they love more than anything, be it a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, brother, sister, friend, anyone at all, but there is something that they do that you sometimes want to strangle them for it? For instance, my husband plays this online game called Arcane Legends and when I say he plays it, he PLAYS it. he is always on that stupid game. When he's not playing the actual game, he's in the chat room forum or whatever it's called. People in the Philippines talk to him more a day then I do! And this so called "free" online game is far from free. While you can play the actual game for free, if you want to get anywhere in the game at all you have to buy platinum, with real money, so that you can open these things called locks in the hope that you can get some cool, bad ass weapons and other assorted gear. And of course in order to get a good deal on the platinum, you have to buy a lot of it. For example, you can get 25 platinum for $9.99 or you can get 100 for $15.00. I honestly have no idea if that's how much the platinum costs; I stopped paying attention to those kinds of details a long time ago.

Now, I'm probably one of the few lucky ones when it comes to spouses or significant others playing video games non-stop. My husband is madly in love with me; every now and then, he randomly looks over at me and says, "God, I just love you so much." Then he leans over and kisses me and sets his game down and focuses completely, 100% on me. I know, that sounds so cute that it's almost disgusting, but just bear with me. I know that he's not doing that just because he thinks I'm getting frustrated with his game playing; he did things like that long before he discovered that game. I know that if I told him that I wanted him to put the game down for good and never pick it up again, he would. He'd definitely mumble and grumble and pout about it, but I'm 100% sure that he would quit playing the game. Okay, maybe not 100% sure. Probably closer to 90%. But he would definitely stop playing it for awhile! I don't think that I would ever tell him to stop playing it, though. He gets so happy when he's playing it that it would break my heart to make him stop. But it would be nice if he would put the game down and focus completely on me every now and then.

So, now it's your turn. Tell me about the person in your life that does that one thing that drives you absolutely crazy and tell me what that thing is. I want to know I'm not alone and that there's other people out there in this boat with me! Solidarity, strength in numbers, etc. etc.

Review of An Armadillo in Paris By Julie Kraulis

I received this book via Netgalley in exchange for a review. It's publication date is October 14, 2014.


Okay, I know. It's a kids book. But a lot of kids books are adorable and contain beautiful illustrations! Now since this was an ARC, it was an uncorrected copy and therefore very difficult to read. Some of the words for one sentence were mixed in with a different sentence and because of that, it was sometimes hard to tell what I was reading, but, being a kids book, I was able to catch the gist of it.

An Armadillo in Paris is about an young armadillo named Arlo who has grown up listening to the stories his uncle told him about all of his travels all over the world. His uncle wrote down all of the stories so that one day, Arlo could visit all of those places and so that he would know exactly what to see when he was there. In this book, Arlo visits Paris, but the way the author sets it up with his uncle's journals opens up the possibility for future books with Arlo visiting numerous other places. His uncle wrote about la Dame de Fer, or the Iron Lady. Every place that the uncle tells Arlo to visit is a buildup to meeting the Iron Lady. At the end of the book, Arlo finally gets to meet her. The author then writes a short history about the Iron Lady, which I think would be a great thing to do for numerous other famous landmarks in possible future Arlo books. It's a fun and interesting way to teach kids the history of numerous famous locations while at the same time teaching them about different countries and cities. I definitely give this a five star rating.

About Me

My full name is Savannah Lee Stell Santilli. Quite the mouthful, but what are you gonna do? I was born Savannah Lee Stell, and no, I was not born in Savannah, Georgia, or in Georgia period. I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. My father's side of the family is from Georgia and we are all Southern to the bone, hence the name. I have two wonderful parents who are still married, which in this day and age I find very impressive. I have an older sister who has 2 beautiful boys, the oldest of which starts middle school next year. If that doesn't make you feel old, I don't know what will. She married a great guy who, despite not being my nephew's biological father, treats them with all the love and kindness they deserve, which definitely makes him their real father. Their biological father was killed in Iraq in 2008. (RIP Chad.)

I live in Arkansas, the hottest, stickiest, most boring state in the union, but it's where I met my wonderful husband, so that definitely puts it up there in my top ten favorite states. We've been married since September 5, 2011 and we're still going strong. He's from Providence, Rhode Island and when he gets really excited about something, his accent slips out, which is awesome. He's extremely Italian, as is his entire family. Think The Sopranos meets The Family Guy. (I just read this to him, and he told me to just keep writing my blog and now he's ignoring me. He's just in denial.) We don't have any kids, but we do have two fantastic dogs named Apollo and Julius who think they're human, so close enough. My best friend is Aliya Dame and although I haven't seen her in awhile, I still absolutely adore her!  

So, now to what I want the focus of this blog to be about. I love books. I love everything about them. My husband thinks we might go broke if we buy all the ones that I want, but he adores me, so he does it anyway. My main genre is YA fantasy, fairytale retellings, mythology, both fiction and nonfiction (if mythology can be nonfiction), history, both fiction and nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Now, while these are my favorites, if it looks good, I'll read it. My hope is that this blog might get people to turn off their TVs and find books that they might want to read. If it helps even one person do that, then I've done my job.