Happy (almost) New Year! For the month of December I decided to challenge myself to draw a picture every day. To go with the theme of winter, and to promote my novel, I chose to draw winter and holiday themed doodles with the cast. Feel free to check our the sketches below! I may one day outline and color them in, too.
2016 is almost over (thank goodness), which means that I have a chance to look back and reflect on some of the things that have happened to me this past year!
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Here’s to the upcoming year! May 2017 be filled with many blessing and opportunities!
I’m a pretty avid reader with right around 300 books in my collection, and a little over 400 books read in my lifetime. Here’s a list of some of my favorite books and series that I’ve read over the years:
*Last Updated: 12.2.16
Neal Shusterman has released another fantastic novel over the holiday weekend (which I immediately purchased on Black Friday.) This time, instead of a dystopian world where abortion is illegal and kids between 12 and 17 can be “unwound,” Scythe takes place in a utopian world where all knowledge has been been achieved and death has been conquered. However, in a world where overpopulation is quickly increasing due to the lack of, well, people dying, an organization of sanctioned killers must take it upon themselves to glean those humans. Those who must take on this task are called Scythes.
The story follows Citra and Rowan, two seventeen year old kids who are chosen by Honorable Scythe Faraday to learn the ways of scythdom and to become the next Scythes. However, only one of them can become a Scythe – and eventually, a new rule is declared where the winner must glean the loser.
I was immediately intrigued by this story, and Shusterman does a great job of throwing us into this world. The first chapter follows Citra’s first encounter with Scythe Faraday, who comes to her home for a meal and then visits their neighbor to glean her. The second chapter follows Rowan, where he is at school when Scythe Faraday arrives to glean the star football player.
Both of these chapters were powerful scenes that established what this utopia was like, thrust the plot forward, and made me connect with the main characters.
Throughout the book, I flipped on who I would want to win this battle between apprentices: Citra, who has strong morals and is quick on her feet, or Rowan, who has the strength and skill to be a good Scythe. I won’t spoil much, but the ending was very satisfying regarding who you end up rooting for. Shusterman does a great job at making it an even race and showing the growth between these two young adults as they’re forced into a world they would much rather ignore.
Lately I’ve been binge watching Criminal Minds on Netflix. It’s probably my favorite crime drama to date (not including Lucifer, which is both a crime drama AND paranormal show that I absolutely adore to bits.) So, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine the giddy excitement I felt when I picked up The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. While I’ve made it a goal to forgo series and spend some time with well written stand-alone novels this past year, but I made an exception for this first novel in a growing series, and I wasn’t disappointed!
I’ve already completed the first three books of the series: The Naturals, Killer Instinct, and All In. Rather than reviewing one book, I’m going to review the series as a whole.
To start, the series follows the story of Cassie Hobbes, who finds herself naturally talented when it comes to profiling strangers. She is dragged into the world of the FBI and other naturals like herself to help solve cold cases. Alongside her is Michael, a natural emotion analyzer; Lia, a human lie-detector; Sloane, the statistic analyzer and human thesaurus; and Dean, another natural profiler like Cassie.
Dani Cojo 