Of Triton (The Syrena Legacy #2) | REVIEW

Of Triton (The Syrena Legacy #2)
by Anna Banks

Page Count: 246 pages

My rating: 5/5 stars

(Disclaimer: Since this is the second book in the trilogy there might be some spoilers about the first one in this review. Also, a synopsis follows so beware of spoilers there about this book).

Synopsis:
Emma has just learned that her mother is a long-lost Poseidon princess, and now struggles with an identity crisis: As a Half-Breed, she’s a freak in the human world and an abomination in the Syrena realm below. Syrena law states that all Half-Breeds should be put to death.
As if that’s not bad enough, her mother’s reappearance among the Syrena turns the two kingdoms—Poseidon and Triton—against one another. Which leaves Emma with a decision to make: Should she comply with Galen’s request to keep herself safe and just hope for the best? Or should she risk it all and reveal herself—and her Gift—to save a people she’s never known?

Review:
There are various reasons why I liked this book a bit more from the first one. The main one is that we saw some characters that weren't developed much in Of Poseidon develop in this one.
Rayna is one of them. Rayna really stood out for me here. We learn many new things about her and the idea of her being spoiled since she's Royal changes at some extent. At least I thought her role was significant.
I also liked Emma in this book. At the end of the first chapter, when we realise what has happened after the encounter in Of Poseidon, I wasn't sure how she was going to cope with that. And she had me confused at certain points of this book because her thought process changed several times. For a second she had me thinking that things are going to get ugly between her and Galen.
Now Galen was, is and probably will be awesome. I adore the guy. He is always so protective of Emma and of his sister of course that I was literally saying "aww" every time he did something cute.
I felt really bad for him at a certain point and those of you that have read this book know exactly to what I'm referring.
The way Emma's mother went back to her old self and started acting more fish-like was funny at some points. Especially in the part with Paca. I was like "you go girl! go get your man".

Not really a spoiler, everyone was expecting that! I really enjoyed that.
I also found King Antonis quite funny at some parts of the book. I believe we all understand how both Nalia and Emma got to be such kick-ass characters! 
Oh oh, Emma was so kick-ass in this book! I loved loved loved the way she decided to take control of some things and show everyone what she is capable of doing!

Now let me shortly address my hate towards Jagen. 

I wanted to kill the guy. 

Slowly.

Painfully.

For the sake of this review, we will call Jagen, "Bianca" and we will combine his character with the following picture..;

Okay enough with him.

The ending was unexpected and I don't really know how to feel about it (should I scream? should I cry?) but I guess we'll see how our characters deal with that in the third and final book.

Finally, I found the Epilogue ADORABLE. I loved it! 

Favorite Characters: Emma, Rayna, Galen, Toraf, Grom, King Antonis. 

Overall, I enjoyed a lot this book and I can't wait to pick up the last one!

Thank you for reading this review!

~Christiana.

Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy #1) | REVIEW

Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy #1)
by Anna Banks

Page Count: 324 pages

My Rating: 5/5 stars

Synopsis:
Galen is the prince of the Syrena, sent to land to find a girl he's heard can communicate with fish. Emma is on vacation at the beach. When she runs into Galen—literally, ouch!—both teens sense a connection. But it will take several encounters, including a deadly one with a shark, for Galen to be convinced of Emma's gifts. Now, if he can only convince Emma that she holds the key to his kingdom...

Told from both Emma and Galen's points of view, here is a fish-out-of-water story that sparkles with intrigue, humor, and waves of romance.




Review
This was my first mermaid book so I might get a little carried away because of my excitement!
I really enjoyed reading Of Poseidon. I found the characters quite enjoyable and funny and the plot was easy and interesting to follow.
Emma (one of our main characters) isn't aware of her gift and she makes it hard for Galen (2nd main character & love interest) to understand if she's like him and his sister.
Basically, Galen is Syrena (since they don't like to be called mermaids) and they live underwater (OBVIOUS).
Emma, without knowing it, is very important for the Syrena race and possibly holds the key for the establishment of peace between the two underwater kingdoms: Of Poseidon & Of Triton.
I found the concept of the two kingdoms very interesting; especially, the fact that there are so many of them and that some of the Syrena decide to live outside the water/sea. That part was well-explained.

In terms of characters, Emma presented some mood-swings at times but since I've come across people with the same attitude, I think I found her rather realistic.
The part when she gets mad at Galen for something (I don't want to spoil it) was a little bit too much but that didn't detract from the book.

Galen was a very interesting character as well. I found hilarious the parts where he was attempting to go to school! These were probably my favorite ones! I also liked his sense of responsibility and the way he always put his people above everything else. That made me like him even more.

About the love aspect; I enjoyed the "love story" in this book. From what I was reading I was afraid that we were going to have a love triangle from the first book and I was screaming "no" internally.

I believe that a love triangle with the characters presented to us in this book would have been pointless. So I'm glad that we sticked to the basic ones. Galen is a great love interest and I enjoyed reading from his POV as well. Although the constant change between the 1st-person and 3rd-person sort of got be confused but I got over it soon.

Also, I really liked Toraf as a character. He was awesome! He was funny and he added something fresh to the story. Good job Toraf, you're already in my favorites list! ;)

And his way of trying to make Galen's sister admit that she likes him was HILARIOUS. I loved the parts of the book when we got to see him! I wish there was more of him! *fangirling*

Overall, I really liked this book! I will, for sure, read the next ones and complete this trilogy!!

For a first mermaid book that went pretty well. I'm excited!!

Thanks for reading my review!!

See you soon,

~Christiana.

We Were Liars by E.Lockhart | REVIEW (SPOILERS)

We Were Liars
by E. Lockhart

Page Count: 240 pages
My rating: 4.7 stars

(Disclaimer: It's better to get into this book without having read anything about it. Neither a synopsis nor any comment. Even the slightest piece of information can ruin it for you. The suspense in this book is great and you want to enjoy it! So please read it before proceeding.)

Synopsis:
A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
 We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Detailed Review:
So this book follows the story of a family, the Sinclair family, that is bearing the patriarchal stereotype and that revolves around money. The head of the family is the Granddad that is married to Tipper (the grandmother) and they have three daughters: Carrie, Penny and Bess. In this story we have an unreliable narrator, Cadence, who is Penny's daughter and who we soon discover suffers from memory loss and migraines that cause her unbearable pain. So it's quite difficult to decide if we can trust her or not.
The book starts with Cadence telling us about her family, including all the family members, and how every summer they had this family island to go to. In the second chapter (the chapters are really short & the story is split into parts), she mentions an accident and that basically things changed after that but we're not yet in a position of solving this "puzzle".
The Sinclair family has low tolerance of something that can cause a scene and something different. For example we get to see Cadence's dad leaving both her and her mother and even if all Cadence was feeling was pain and rejection, her mother pushed her to show nothing, like this didn't even affect her. I think that was the first time in this book when I was sort-of shocked.
Then Cadence mentions the three houses, the Granddad built for the three daughters that later on plays an important role since the three mothers literally fight with each other for the houses.
And then we get the kids, the "Liars" as they call each other: Cadence, Johnny, Mirren and Gat. 
Cadence, Johnny and Mirren are cousins, whereas Gat is the nephew of Carrie's new husband Ed (Carrie is Johnny's mother).
Following this family gets a little confusing, I know, and I had trouble keeping up with them at first and I had to go back and forth in the book so as to understand who is who. Practically all except  Ed and Gat, are related to each other.
Practically the Liars are always hanging out together and Cadence is slowly falling in love with Gat.
Now the strange part starts when Cadence mentions summer 15 and how she remembers herself on the beach wearing only her underwear and suffering from hypothermia. She gets in the water and she hits her head as well. And that's where the true suspense story begins.
(Before that though, she remembers that she and Gat kissed and that her Granddad walked in on them; she also remembers that Gat had a girlfriend.)
Cadence doesn't remember what happened in summer 15 at all. There are blank spots in her mind and not only that but also she gets migraines that cause her extreme pain. That sounded quite intriguing to me when I first read it. Why wouldn't she remember what happened close to her accident but she was able to remember anything that happened earlier in summer 15?
In the next summer she wants to go back to Beechwood (the island) but her mother says that she can't so they send her in Europe with her Dad. During her trip in Europe, Cadence attempts to send emails to the three other Liars but she gets no answer. Another suspicious element.
Summer 17, she insists on going to Beechwood and finally her mother allows her to do that for 4 weeks. She goes there ready to find out what happened 2 summers ago.
Now that was when I got confused. Everyone was behaving mysteriously. Her Granddad, especially after her Grandmother died, was losing it. He was calling Cadence, Mirren (who is the cousin and one of the Liars). One aunt was in island wearing her gown at night, running around. The big house where the Granddad lived was renovated.
To make the long story short, after too much trouble, Cadence realises that the Liars started a fire to burn down the "patriarchy" and all the papers that the Granddad had against the mothers so they could stop fighting over the fortune. Also the Grandfather said the Carrie was not allowed to marry Ed (who is from India as I can recall) because he is "different" from their family. So if she married Ed, they would never come back to the island. And the Liars would be separated.
At the night of the fire, they sent everyone away and they took gas and got into the house.
Basically they split and they arranged to meet outside to celebrate their "win" but what happens is that Cadence makes a mistake, she lights the bookshelves and since paper gets easily burnt, the ceiling was alight. And since someone from the above room was spreading gas as well, everything was on fire.
And then Cadence hears screams.
Johnny, Mirren and Gat were trapped inside the flaming house.
And Cadence feels responsible. That's why she was on the beach, her arms and legs were semi-burnt and then she hit her head.
AND THE MIND-BLOWING PART WAAAAAS:
In summer 17, Johnny, Mirren and Gat were hallucinations. She was seeing them because they were there to help her remember.
whaaaaaaat?
yes yes, I read the last pages 5 times in a row in order to realise what had just happened.
It was shocking and well-constructed and I just couldn't believe it.

Overall, the characters were great. Each one of them was different and they were so complex. And of course they supported this patriarchal concept really well. Some of the irritated me at times, for example Penny (Cadence's mother) because of the way she was trying to "advertise" her daughter to the grandfather in order for her to acquire the fortune. The same thing that practically the other 2 mothers did with their kids. Also, the way that they didn't allow anyone to mention Cadence's Dad when he left them and the Grandmother when she died. As if it was a "shame" and they didn't want any of that to the family. So irritating. But it added to the story!!
I read this book in one sitting. Oh yes, I did. I couldn't put it down.

Before ending this review, I want to say that the scene when Cadence says goodbye to the hallucinations almost brought me to tears. It was so emotional and so intense and so heartbreaking, knowing that they could have all survived and be together but even after what happened they still came back to help her remember...God, that hurt. And Gat's goodbye was even more heartbreaking.. It showed that even when everything else was corrupted and dysfunctional, they managed to love each other so much.  *insert tears*

I suggest you read this book!
But don't spoil yourselves!!

Thank you for reading!

~Christiana.