March 2015 - Booked J | in the Land of Stories

5:01 PM

The Infernal Devices Trilogy by Cassandra Clare | Rating: ★★★★☆ “One must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, “and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.” When I first heard of this trilogy and how it was meant to be a prequel of The Mortal Instruments I thought to myself: how can she pull this off? How...

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4:41 PM

The Casual Vacancy by J.K Rowling | Rating:★★★☆☆ “It was strange how your brain could know what your heart refused to accept.” The Casual Vacancy’s tagline is “A Big Novel About A Small Town" and really, there is no better description for J.K Rowling’s debut in adult fiction. Because it is just that. And, hey, no complaints here! Admittedly, it took me a...

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4:36 PM

Gossip Girl: Psycho Killer by Cecily Von Ziegesar | Rating: ★★★★☆ "Best keep a safe distance. Unless you’re skilled with a knife. And — like me — you just can’t stay away. You know you love me, Gossip Girl." As many know, before there was the CW’s loose adaption Gossip Girl was a set of bestselling novels that ran from the 2002-2007 and...

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4:29 PM

The Secret Circle Trilogy (Original) by L.J Smith | Rating: ★★★★☆ "The silver cord can never be broken. Your lives are linked. You can’t escape each other any more than you can escape destiny." I’m a sucker for all things witches — and so it is no shock that this trilogy is one of the first things I got my hands on when...

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4:20 PM

Hate List by Jennifer Brown | Rating: ★★★★★ “We all got to be winners sometimes. But what he didn’t understand was that we all had to be losers, too. Because you can’t have one without the other.” Every now and then I stumble upon a novel that touches my heart and gives me something to learn. A novel that is as realistic as...

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4:03 PM

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green | Rating ★★★★★ "I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up. And I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?" You’ve heard the hype — this is one of those books that has spread like wildfire amongst book lovers and even people who don’t seem to find pleasure in reading regularly....

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3:58 PM

Waking Up Married by Mira Lyn Kelly | Rating: ★★★★☆ "…fairy tales come in varieties she hadn’t known existed." / "Life isn’t about getting everything you want the instant you want it." This novel is one of the eBooks you can receive for free on iTunes, Amazon and Netgalley (as well as, I’m sure, many other sites) and is surprisingly well written for...

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3:53 PM

Struck By Lightning (The Carson Phillips Journal) by Chris Colfer | Rating: ★★★★☆ “You don’t get to pick where you’re from, but you always have control of where you’re going.” Struck By Lightning is a clever, witty novel filled with two things young adults will positively eat up: sarcasm and blackmail. Proof is in the opening chapter (or in, true to format, entry...

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3:49 PM

The Girl Death Left Behind by Lurlene McDaniel | Rating: ★★★☆☆ "You look at people from the inside out instead of the other way around." (Throwback, re-edited review.) Lurlene McDaniel’s 1999 novel The Girl Death Left Behind is just the right amount of tearjerker storytelling you’d expect from this popular author. Lurlene’s work has been around for ages and I’ve got a hunch...

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3:45 PM

Splintered by A.G Howard | Rating: ★★★★★ “Tearing down the rest of the world won’t make you happy. Look inside yourself. Because finding who you were meant to be? What you were put into this world to do? That’s what fills the emptiness. It’s the only things that can.” It’s important to note that growing up, I was obsessed with any and all...

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3:39 PM

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline | Rating: ★★★★★ "Time constricts and flattens, you know. It’s not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear." Have you ever read a book that sticks with you for months after you’ve originally read it? Of course — all avid book readers have. Whether that’s a classic or newly introduced novels like The...

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3:34 PM

Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan | Rating: ★★★★☆ "…but this is where I wanted to end my night. This is what I wanted to come back to. This is as much a part of my story as anything else. Friendship is as much as any romance. And like any love, it’s difficult and treacherous and confusing....

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3:30 PM

She’s So Money by Cherry Cheva | Rating: ★★★★★ "…but hey, starting over is what college is for. It didn’t matter that I had nothing left here. I’d just leave. Forget everything. Start again. Right?" / "He was just having fun," Camden said. "Maybe you’ve heard of it?" "Heard of it. Enjoy it. At the moment, not having it." I turned to go....

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3:23 PM

Divergent by Veronica Roth | Rating: ★★★★☆ “Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.” Divergent is the first novel in a trilogy that holds the story of a choice and a whole lot of determination in a dystopian but familiar setting of Chicago told through the eyes of main...

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3:01 PM

City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clara | Rating: ★★★☆☆ "The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed." Originally, I had read this novel while I was a teenager and hadn’t had the best impression of it due to...

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2:56 PM

My Summer of Love by Helen Cross | Rating: ★★★☆☆ “I thought how money was like food. The smell, the way it came in portions, how badly you needed it. How hungry you got for it, that acidic longing which burned and sickened in your stomach. Firm muscular control was needed over food and money. Money could kill you, wanting and needing it...

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a star for mrs. blake

3:07 PM

A Star For Mrs. Blake by April Smith | Rating: ★★★☆☆ As far as historical fiction goes, A Star For Mrs. Blake stands out among more recent releases. It is in part based upon/inspired by a true stories. Many people will go into the story with minimal knowledge on the so called “Gold Star Mothers”, especially those who live out of the United...

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2:41 PM

Edwin: High King of Britain by Edoardo Albert | Rating: ★★★☆☆ Before I start my review, I would like to clarify that I’ve rated this book a 3.5; nearly a 4 out of 5 stars. Second, let’s take a moment to talk about how stunning the cover art Edwin has. It’s absolutely perfect and while you mustn’t judge a book by its cover,...

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2:34 PM

Don’t Die, My Love by Lurlene McDaniel | Rating: ★★★★★ “When you’re up against a superior enemy, sometimes it’s okay to just bow out gracefully” I will always, always have a soft spot for Lurlene McDaniel’s books. She is, after all, one of the authors who truly got me into reading. Don’t Die, My Love is perhaps one of her most popular works...

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2:15 PM

The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan | Rating: ★★★★☆ “We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lie alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out - that it is somehow too late. That...

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2:01 PM

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold | Rating: ★★★★★ “Murderers are not monsters, they’re men. And that’s the most frightening thing about them. / These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections-sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent-that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me...

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Receiving, Buying and Swapping Books

7:06 PM

Have you ever wondered where book reviewers purchase their books? How some receive some serious freebies? Or if it’s possible to receive free books to review? Both physical copies as well as eBooks? Are you new to all of this or just curious of your options? One of the most frequently asked question among beginning book bloggers are often on how to receive...

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Welcome, Welcome

BOOKED J was created by a group of friends who wanted nothing more than to discuss literature with the world. In the time since, Booked J has gone through a number of changes in name and content.

Presently run by Jessica, a freelance writer, singer, Goodreads Librarian and avid reader, Booked J is--somehow--still going strong. With several years of book blogging under her belt, and a desire to work with the literary community in making it more diverse, she is always open to collaborations.

You can always find Jessica obnoxiously singing show-tunes into her morning coffee. When not reading or researching true crime, she is likely running around outside with her dogs and generally making a fool of herself.

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As of 2020 I no longer accept digital ARCs. This change is indefinite. If you send an email inquiring about digital review copies I will likely not respond.

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