Awake by Wendy Raven McNair.

Ok, so last night I finished reading the second instalment of Wendy Raven McNair's Asleep trilogy, "Awake".

It is SO GOOD. I love Adisa, she shines in a sea filled with selfish stupid YA heroines as a beacon of all that is good, and she's NOT a mary sue. A feat only a few writers can pull off.

I like that even when she's overwhelmed with adversity, overcome in one of her "rages", with everyone around her man-handling her, or keeping her in the dark, or basically using her for their own purposes, she still manages to think, to keep her priorities straight, to never lose sight of what she wants.
And when she makes mistakes she realizes them and she does her best to make it better, to apologize, to learn from the experience.
She doesn't lie to herself, even when she compartmentalizes, like Pearl.

Speaking of Pearl. OMG. I kind of figured Adisa would have to go to extremes to get out of Kubanza, but gosh, when the moment came... it had me in tears!
Also, I'm having a hard time making the Sps as the bad guys, as Adisa seemed determined to do in the beginning. It's not just "cultural differences" that separates earthbounds from them. It's so much more. It's gonna be pretty interesting reading how Adisa will make sense of both her heritages merged in herself, which is what I think will have to come next (after she saves Micah, of course, LOL).

And Micah *melts* that boy- sorry, that man... how dreamy can he be? even with the Sp. creepiness- sorry, cultural differences... LOL. I was starting to mourn when he became Guardian and the whole permanent shield, and then he goes and kisses Adisa like he used to... AWWWW!!!
Ok, that felt a bit like forced HEA, but the kids deserve it, dammit!
I mean, The Authorities making an exception just for him? it sounds too good to be true if you ask me, suspicious.

Anyway. This series rocks. That's the bottom line. Thank you dear niece for sharing it with me *hugs* ♥♥♥

P.D.: LOL, I'm ashamed to say... that I'm gonna have to google King Musa, just like Adisa. Oh, and the "cinnamon balls" joke, still cracks me up like a juvenile.

River Marked

So I'm finished reading Patricia Briggs' latest Mercy Thompson book, "River Marked".
Since I've keep with my attempts at not being spoiled all these years when it comes to things I like this book left me very pleasantly surprised.
I didn't have the slightest hint that a wedding would come so soon!
But Alas! since my favorite couple could NOT go on a honeymoon without getting their lives at stake (the universe would implode) I kinda expected them to get into trouble.
But hot-damn, the kind of trouble they found!
I've been dreaming of Mercy getting in touch with her native-american side since the very First book, so I drank the whole thing up. I love Coyote, he's so... so... irreverent but wise, aloof but someone who cares, funny but with a serious backbone, mysterious but makes sense, and I love the fact that when Mercy threatened him with calling her mother he actually backed off. Hilarious! (and it was so right when he walked off with the walking stick).
But what made this book, if you ask me, is seeing how Mercy and Adam have come such a long way, their love runs so deep, it's a thing of beauty.
Stefan's slow climb up tugged at my heart-strings. 
Meanwhile, I've become used to changing my momo's wallpaper according to the book I happen to be reading, and I finally got to use a certain wallpaper that, the SECOND I saw I knew it was Mercy, in my mind.

Shadowfever

It's Out it's out it's out it's out!!!!!!!!!!!!

BarronsBarronsBarronsBarronsBarronsBarrons

*dances around wildly*

I'm off to read this book YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

On ebooks.

I know ebooks have become kind of a controversial topic for the book community ever since they got more and more popular. Some authors (but mainly publishing houses) are completely against them due to their belief that file sharing is taking money away from them, others embrace the ebook challenge and point out that file sharing gives them much needed free publicity.
I'm not an author, so, as a reader, ebooks are a blessing to me.
I'm a bibliophile living in a country where books have become obscenely expensive.
What can I do? the public library here in my city sucks so much I get depressed just thinking about going there. So that's a No.
When I found ebooks online... heaven's clouds opened to let sunshine cover me.
And Yes, I will tell you, I download pirated ebooks. Free ebooks. I can't buy them online because for various real life reasons that are beyond my fixing I just can't.
So, downloading ebooks has become a sort of addiction for me. But there's always a dark side to every happy story, reading too much on your computer screen is bad for eyes, your back, your social life, the lot.
I have 442 ebooks downloaded, of which I have read about half on my computer.
My body is getting too old for that.
So last month, Christmas time, I was trolling every store that sold electronics in Chile (I was vacationing there) looking for an e-reader. I wanted to get a Kobo, but apparently they only sell those in, like, select stores in Canada or something.
What I found, that was affordable, and had what I wanted was this one:

Viewsonic ereader Veb620.

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/ereaders/278587/viewsonic-veb620 

(read this review, it says everything I have to say about this specific model).

I like my ereader. I don't need it to connect online, or offer all the frilly stuff a kindle offers, almost all of my ebooks are PDF files so whatever ereader I got would have the same disadvantages, since PDFs have certain intrinsecal logistic dillemas that ereader software in general have not yet resolved.
I wish the screen would be bigger though, but with the same size of ereader, and I wish I could adjust the contrast, but all in all, I'm happy as a clam.
I can read my ebooks wherever, my eyes and back are grateful, and I don't have to worry about book storage anymore. Since our apartment is filled with books already...
All I can say to authors out there is this:
If I like your book, I will endeavour to buy it, even if I have to sell my left kidney. If I don't like your book enough to put my body in danger, I won't buy it. So there, I'm not "stealing" money from anyone, since for me money is very hard to come by to begin with, I have to be careful and selective on how I spend.
I also like thinking that I'm giving trees a respite.