test lol: July 2017

Friends! Hello and I hope you're having a good start to the week! Today, I'm excited to share my potential TBRs for some great challenges taking place in August—#ARCAugust, hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat. & #TheReadingQuest hosted by Read at Midnight!

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So! Since there are two challenges, and I am notoriously lazy, it's in my best interest to tackle both and have books that overlap with both challenges. I thought about doing separate TBRs but I think, in the long run, posting them together will be easier.

But before I get to that, here's a little background info on both the challenges. First up...

#ARCAugust

Hosted by Shelly, Octavia, and Angie @ read.sleep.repeat.org

A few months ago, back in April, I participated in a challenge called A Very ARC-ish Readathon, which was a low maintenance challenge that encouraged bloggers and readers alike to tackle their advance reading copies (or advance review copies), both new and old. The same goes for #ARCAugust, only in a new month.

Again, it's something that you shouldn't stress about. As Octavia says in her post, "ARC August has always been about having fun first and finishing ARCs second."

There will be two Twitter chats, using the hashtag #ARCAugust, taking place at 8PM EST on August 8th and August 28th! There's be giveaways and interviews as well.

This challenge starts August 1st and ends August 31st.

Click HERE to check out their sign-up post and any more info!

Next up, there's...

#TheReadingQuest

Hosted by Aentee @ readatmidnight.com

#TheReadingQuest is a new challenge that is based on a video game quest. You get to pick your own character class, earn health and experience points, and conquer your TBR!

The challenge is based off of a traditional bingo board—only difference is that you have to go through a path of challenges based on the character class of your choosing. Each square has a prompt you must complete.

Here are the classes! You have 4 to choose from.

you can click on the image to make it bigger!

Here's the board where your challenges lay:

you can click on the image to make it bigger!

The blue squares in the middle are side quests, which you can complete for extra points!

Part of this quest is earning experience points and health points. Everyone starts at 10 EXP, gains 10 EXP for every book/challenge you finish, and 1 HP for every 10 pages.

All picture credits go to CW over at Read, Think, Ponder! Thank you for the AMAZING character art!

For this challenge, participants had the option of making a character card! And, so, of course I made one:

Credit goes to the amazing CW for the adorable character art and background! I only edited the font.

As you can see, I'm a mage because mages are awesome.

This challenge begins August 13th and ends September 13.

You can find out more about the challenge and levelling up HERE.

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Now! Time for my potential TBR, because we all know how terrible I am with those.

For the 5 prompts my mage has to go through, I've picked the following books:

♩ Unearthed by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

- a book with a one word title

♩ The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

- a book that contains magic

♩ The Goblins of Bellwater by Molly Ringle

- a book based on mythology

♩ An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

- a book set in a different world

♩ Last Star Burning by Caitlin Sangster

- the first book or a series

For my #ARCAugust TBR, I'm hoping to finish & get to the following books:

♩ The Empress by S.J. Kincaid

♩ Dare by Natalia Jaster

♩ All The Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater

♩ Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi

♩ That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston

That's all of it! I'm very bad with TBRs so let's hope I manage this, haha. It helps that they're all books I want to read!

Are you guys participating in any of these challenges?

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{ about the book }

Omega by Jus Accardo

The Infinity Division, book 2

Publishes August 1, 2017 by Entangled Teen

e-ARC provided by publisher

Add it on GoodReads!

The second book in the Infinity time travel series is full of action, romance, and an intricately designed roller coaster plot.

One mistake can change everything. Ashlyn Calvert finds that out the hard way when a bad decision leads to the death of her best friend, Noah Anderson.

Only Noah isn’t really gone. Thanks to his parents’ company, the Infinity Division, there is a version of him skipping from one dimension to another, set on revenge for the death of his sister, Kori. When a chance encounter brings him face-to-face with Ash, he’s determined to resist the magnetic pull he’s felt for her time and time again. Because falling for Ash puts his mission in danger.

But there’s more going on in Ash’s alternate universe than either of them knows: a mysterious project called Omega. A conspiracy spanning multiple Earths and revolving around none other than Ash. Its creators would do anything to keep Omega secret…

Anything.

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{ my review }

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Like the first book, I am torn about this follow up. On the one hand, I liked the two main characters, Noah and Ashlyn. On the other, it had the same downfall Infinity had, which was its romance.

Omega is told through two perspectives, which is new from Infinity. While it may seem like a companion novel, it isn’t, so if you’re interested in the series, definitely start with Infinity first. Omega does have its own plot that’s seemingly different than what Infinity was about, but there’s backstory there which you might miss or be confused about if you jump into Omega.

So! That being said, consider it some unwarranted advice, hah.

Anyway, like I said, I liked the main characters… but only to an extent. In the very beginning, they were both fresh, new, snarky voices, and I admired them. Ash was strong and capable and she didn’t let anyone walk over her, despite her standing in her messed up world. She was fierce and she fought back and I admired her tenacity. Noah, on the other hand, was still the lowkey jerk from book one, and being in his head was fun because he was a pretty funny and sassy character.

It went like this for most of the book… until the romance kicked in.

The romance was the part that bugged me the entire time back when I read Infinity. It was confusing and messy and strange, much like it is here. In Omega, Ash’s Noah has died, and for most of the book, Ash is pointing out how different her Noah is from this new Noah. I got it the first time and by the fiftieth—I’m not even sure if I’m exaggerating or not at this point—it was beyond tiresome. It was something that was obvious to me, too, now that I think about it. They might essentially be the same person on different earths, but that doesn’t mean that they’re identical and while I do believe Ash knew that, she still continued to make the comparison.

Same goes for Noah. Every time he went onto a new Earth, he’d search for Ashlyn and “get her out of his system”. Only this time, it was different. She wasn’t like the other Ashlyns he’d met—of course she wasn’t! It was said over and over and it was so annoying.

These books are by no means “light” and I liked that, for the most part, but since they do focus somewhat heavily on the feelings part, it tends to overshadow what else was happening. I say this because I liked the plot here; I liked where it was leading—there was definitely a high stakes thing going on, but eventually it got lost on me.

There were some golden moments in the book, like when Kori, Cade, and Noah are reminiscing about memories on different worlds. I wished there was more of that, more of Kori and Noah bonding—there’s only really one scene—more of Cade and Noah being the best buds they’re supposed to be. But there wasn’t that group camaraderie, sadly, which was a bit disheartening.

Overall, the book was fine. I… sort of liked it, but it isn’t something that’s going to stick with me, so yeah. 3 stars!

Check out my review for Infinity!

{ buy the book }

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound

Kindle | Nook | Kobo | iBooks | Google Play

{ about the author }

JUS ACCARDO spent her childhood reading and learning to cook. Determined to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps as a chef, she applied and was accepted to the Culinary Institute of America. But at the last minute, she realized her true path lay with fiction, not food.

Jus is the bestselling author of the popular Denazen series from Entangled publishing, as well as the Darker Agency series, and the New Adult series, The Eternal Balance. A native New Yorker, she lives in the middle of nowhere with her husband, three dogs, and sometimes guard bear, Oswald.