In My Mailbox - November 6th

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted at The Story Siren, in which you show the books you got that week.  They can be borrowed from friends, bought, or been taken out from the library. Here are the books I've received recently:
I bought:

1. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin
2. The Summoning - Kelley Armstrong
3. The Awakening - Kelley Armstrong
4. The Reckoning - Kelley Armstrong
5. Raised by wolves - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

I received as a gift:

1. Bloodline - Kate Cary
2. Plague - Michael Grant

What did you get in your mailbox? Leave a link in the comments!
*Also, come check out my giveaway!*

Blogoversary Giveaway!

On October 31st it was my Blogoversary, and here's my giveaway to celebrate it!

The contest will go from November 6th to November 20th. The prize will be a signed hardcover copy of The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong, along with a temporary tattoo for the book that I picked up at the signing:

Here are the rules:

1.   The contest is only open to people in the United States

2.  You don't have to follow the blog to enter, but if you do you'll get an extra entry

3.  You don't have to blog about this contest, but if you do you'll get 2 extra entries

4.  I will email you if you win the prize, but if you don't respond within 72 hours (3 days), I will draw another winner

Enter here:

Blogoversary!

Hi guys! I know I haven't posted in a long time, but it was my blogoversary a few days ago and I want to get back into blogging. I have a great giveaway planned so I just need to get the enter forms ready before I post it. Check back soon to look at the contest!

*Also, I just joined Twitter, so feel free to come follow me @AthenaBlogger*

In My Mailbox - September 4th

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted at The Story Siren, in which you show the books you got that week.  They can be borrowed from friends, bought, or been taken out from the library.  This week, I got four books:

From library:

1. Abandon - Mag Cabot
2. Seventeenth Summer - Maureen Daly


I bought:

Bright Young Things - Anna Godbersen

And I received as part of an ARC Tour:

Slide - Jill Hathaway (loved it!)

What did you get in your mailbox? Leave a link in the comments!

She Smells the Dead

She Smells the Dead by E.J. Stevens

Publisher: Sacred Oaks Press
Release date: September 9th 2010
Pages: 165 pages
Source: For review from author
Summary (from Goodreads): It's the beginning of senior year and Yuki's psychic awareness of ghostly spirits is threatening to ruin her life. Her ability to sense spirits of the dead isn't glamorous like on TV. SHE SMELLS THE DEAD. Yuki is being visited in her dreams and suspects that her friend Calvin is involved in something strange. Will Yuki be able to save the spirits and herself?

My review: I'm really glad that I read She Smells the Dead; it's a very refreshing book with a twisting plot and astounding description.

The thing that stood out most out of the whole book was the originality. Yuki smells the dead, quite literally. That definitely is not something that I have ever seen before, though seeing the dead is quite a common subject in paranormal young adult novels. The whole storyline is original, including the take on wolves that I had never seen before.  It was very unique, and a refreshment from all the usual.


She Smells the Dead was filled with funny, intriguing, and witty characters. Yuki was a character that was easy to relate to, other than smelling the dead. She wasn't the only one that was easy to relate to; Cal, Simon, and Emma were all great character. They all kept me laughing throughout the book, but also curious as to what would happen to them.

The one thing that I thought could have been better was the plot. In the beginning, I had no idea where the book was going to lead, and it continued like that throughout the whole book. While I really liked this aspect of it, I found that the climax was rather. . . missing. There was a bit more action there, but even then it still wasn't huge next to the rising action.

She Smells the Dead is a book that I would recommend to anyone who loves paranormal novels!

My rating:
Characters: 4.5/5
Plot: 4/5
Writing:4.5/5
Originality: 5/5

In total,