Review Wednesday: RoseBlood by A.G. Howard

Title: RoseBlood

Author: A.G. Howard
1st Date of Publication: January 10, 2017

ISBN: 9781419719097
# of Pages: 432

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Age Rating: 13+

Buy on Amazon

Book Description:
In this modern day spin on Leroux’s gothic tale of unrequited love turned to madness, seventeen-year-old Rune Germain has a mysterious affliction linked to her operatic talent, and a horrifying mistake she’s trying to hide. Hoping creative direction will help her, Rune’s mother sends her to a French arts conservatory for her senior year, located in an opera house rumored to have ties to The Phantom of the Opera.

At RoseBlood, Rune secretly befriends the masked Thorn—an elusive violinist who not only guides her musical transformation through dreams that seem more real than reality itself, but somehow knows who she is behind her own masks. As the two discover an otherworldly connection and a soul-deep romance blossoms, Thorn’s dark agenda comes to light and he’s forced to make a deadly choice: lead Rune to her destruction, or face the wrath of the phantom who has haunted the opera house for a century, and is the only father he’s ever known.

Setting: Paris, France in the 21st century
Point of View: 1st person- Rune Germain, 3rd person- Thorn

Goodreads Rating: 3.36

My Rating: 2.0

 

Part of the Book that Caught My Attention: Cover

View on the Cover: It is absolutely beautiful yet haunting. The thorns might mean that she is stuck and tangled in something that she can't get out of. Is the mask a reference to Phantom of the Opera.
View on Title: Isn't the color of blood the same as the color of roses? I think that's redundant.

Pros:

• The writing was the only good thing about this book. The style is beautiful and that was the only thing keeping me reading. It made me hope things would possibly get better.

Cons:

• The jumping from the first person as Rune to the third person as Thorn was really confusing at first and made it extremely difficult to read even after figuring out what happened at the point of view switch. The concept of switching seemed like it was cool but it wasn't executed properly.
• The Phantom of the Opera is a classic and this novel did no justice to it. The novel was filled with so many cliches that weren't executed well either.
• The Rune's superpower through the use of her voice was pretty ridiculous and didn't really fit well into the story.
• The vampires were by far the worst thing in this book. It was awful.
• There was a lack of description, purpose, and action for the opera school RoseBlood.

Critics' Reviews:
"A rich, atmospheric story that readers will be hard-pressed to put down." -Kirkus
"This is an accomplished undertaking... A good purchase for paranormal romance collections, and the connections to a classic work of literature add appeal." -School Library Journal
"Part vampire lore and part love story, this will appeal to those who enjoyed titles like Beautiful Creatures and Vampire Academy." -School Library Connection

A.G. Howard's Website:

http://www.aghoward.com/

Other Recommendations:

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
The Shadow Queen by C.J. Redwine
Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan

Life Update from the Past Year (Summer 2016-Summer 2017)

I am really sorry my blog posts have been really sporadic and sparse. I have had a lot of life changes happen and I am finally getting back on my feet. My life is an adventure all the time and sometimes it is very difficult to figure out when is the best time to write. Writing is an art and it doesn't come easily sometimes.

School
A lot has changed when it comes to school. Since I have given my last update, I finished my senior thesis (which I have posted on here already) and I got an A on it, which is a blessing. Because that semester was really brutal from working overtime and a heavy school load, my GPA suffered a little bit. I still managed a 3.0 but I knew I had to do a little extra work to figure out how to make the overall GPA stay at a 3.5

Unfortunately, my plan to finish school in 2.5 years was foiled since a class got scheduled to the semester after I planned to finish. I was at a dilemma since I only had 4 classes to finish my English Literature major and Writing minor. It was going to cost me more money to finish so I added a Business minor because you can never go wrong with the pursuing anything in business. I graduated with my degree on May 20, 2017 with a 3.5 overall GPA. In my last year, I decided to take it easier on myself because the semester of my senior thesis has really run me down and I'm still trying to get back the energy I once had.

Home
I have been living on my own for over a year now. I moved out of my parents house a few days after my 21st birthday and started living with my boyfriend since it became harder to share a room with a 9-year old sister while working early in the morning. It was also nice to have him move closer so it didn't feel like we had to really make the relationship work long distance with busy schedules. It's a fairly good fit. I live in the stone ages according to some people since I have no cable or internet. That's one of the reasons why my writing has suffered. I have an easier time writing in my own home rather than public places.

A few months after I graduated, my boyfriend and I moved cross country from Scranton, Pennsylvania to Seattle, Washington because he was stationed there in the military and loved it and I always wanted to travel to the west. I have only been here for about 3 weeks and I am enjoying myself. It's just really hard starting from nothing again. The move has been hard for me because I have never been so far away from my family but I am trying to take it one step at a time.

Work
I did finally get my manager shirt in October 2016 through a lot of extra hard work that I shouldn't have had to do compared to the other managers. I didn't stay much longer after that because I was treated poorly even though I really put myself out there and didn't give any issues.

I wanted to work in a more sophisticated job setting where I can wear my own nice clothes and not wear uniforms that eventually smell like fries. Before Christmas, I put in my 2 weeks without a promise of a job (something that is extremely ballsy of me) and I put in applications. Thankfully, I found a job through Penn East Federal Credit Union as a part-time teller.

I really liked working there and I felt like an asset rather than an annoyance or useless. I proved myself capable and worth changing to full-time. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible since there wasn't any full-time positions available. That was until I put in my 2 weeks since I was moving out of the state.

That brings me to today. Since I live near Seattle, Washington, I have been hunting for a job for almost 3 weeks. After a frustrating time of job searching, I finally have a job at Columbia Bank as a traveling teller/member service worker. I am in the process of paperwork and waiting for my credentials to be approved. My training starts in mid-October. I'm looking forward to be working and I hate not being as productive as I usually have been in the past.

Traveling
I have done more traveling this past year than I have my entire life. Since my boyfriend loves to travel, it has really been effortless to see the United States. I have traveled as far down as Virginia and Maryland and all the way north to Maine. I have been to every single state in the northeastern part of the United States now. Since I have traveled cross country by driving our cars, I have stopped at all the states that are in the northern part as I got closer to Washington. I have been to half of the United States while my boyfriend only has 5 left.

Writing
My writing has suffered a little bit with the lack of internet at home since I have been living on my own and that I can't really afford the internet yet. I plan to get internet in the near future.

I also plan to write my own book because my job doesn't entail writing so I plan to write more and make it more in my new routine once I start a routine. I am going to be studying many books that involve writing in one way or another. I want to write my own book, but I don't know what that'll be like or entail. I want to come into writing my first book with a clean slate. My first book I read for it was On Writing: A Memoir of Craft by Stephen King, which was such an excellent read. I've learned so much about what writing entails and that I'm not alone as a struggling writer.

Thank you for reading this post. My life is so crazy and I'm just hoping for some normalcy in the near future. Since I only have to worry about working like an adult (Hallelujah!), it should be very soon.

April 2016 Update

I am so very sorry that I have been on such a long hiatus from this blog. I have some very avid fans who have been telling me that I need to update them on this blog so that they don't feel cheated completely. But, I have been extremely busy and I wish that I have had time to actually write on this blog more regularly.

First of all, I want to say, "Happy Spring!," even though it doesn't feel like spring. Up here in Northeast Pennsylvania, it has been very wishy-washy. One day it'll be almost like summer with 70 degree weather and then a couple days later it snows and is cold. It's a little frustrating, but I know I won't be living in this area for my entire life. Once I finish my bachelor's degree, I have big plans that don't involve Scranton as much, but I'll let you all know later about this.

School has been one of two reasons why I have not posted anything since December, but I have thought about this blog very often. I'll be straight up: School has been everything but fun for the most. I am finally able to swim up the surface enough to write this update and maybe a few more posts this month before I will be back on after finals in the beginning-middle of May. I have actually deemed this semester as the "Semester from Hell" because I feel like every day is a struggle to get up and start my day. Enough of my little pity party.

I have been working really hard. I am taking 2 British literature courses, a young adult genre course (I really love this class), and a philosophy class called Ethics along with my Senior Seminar class. I do not find my Ethics class any fun, but the incentive I have is that I am getting paid to take notes for a student who can't. I do not know why but I at least am helping someone out. The British courses are alright, but it made me realize I'm not much of a fan of British literature except for Shakespeare. Young Adult is really fun and we went over my favorite book, "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins, in the middle of the semester, which brings me to my Senior Seminar class.

I have to say that my Senior Seminar class is my most exciting and rewarding class but exhausting and draining at the same time. In this class, I am writing my senior thesis (we call it "capstone" at Marywood University) which is a huge paper that has become a research project. In my paper, I am writing about "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent" where I am concentrating heavily on different aspects of characterizations to explain why they are seen to be radical for this time period and why they have become so popular. This paper is the main reason why I have not written anything for you, but I am almost completely done with it. I plan to share it with you once I have presented it in front of a crowd of English majors and professors along with whoever we invite, which really scares me because I am someone who likes to be behind the scenes rather than in the spotlight. I will post the interview I got from another English student about my paper in the next post immediately following this.

Now for scheduling for the fall 2016 semester. I am in the top tier for scheduling so I got first pickings, which is nice for the most part but frustrating at first. I found out that I won't graduate next semester  (January 2017) since the last requirement is not being offered so I have to take an extra semester. I was a little distraught and upset, but I thought that I would add another minor but in business. I scheduled my classes while I was on break at work but only got half my classes I originally signed up for. So that day became "let's run around and see if I can get my schedule fixed before going back to work." Thankfully, I did manage. My first mission was to get off the waitlist for a writing class for my writing minor, which I managed to get a quick discussion and email to the English chair. I got put on the roster a couple days later. Next was my business classes, which is new for me. I met up with the business chair, which my wonderful boyfriend (he's a business double major) helped me go straight to him so that I don't have to make an extra step or two to find the chair. The business chair helped me fix my business class and I declared my minor in business a couple days later, too. So now I am taking a 2 writing courses, 3 business courses, and no literature courses.

That was pretty much everything for school. Work has been insane for me and the second reason why I have not been blogging. I am working split shifts at my job and work about 50 hours a week. I originally was scheduled about 44 hours a week when the semester started, but as the weeks went by my hours kept getting longer. I wake up almost every weekday morning at 4:30 and now Saturdays, too. Recently my Friday overnight shifts got changed to an early Saturday morning. I have not slept in or came into work late because my boyfriend is so awesome and calls me to wake me up because my phone alarm is not always the most reliable. Because my schedule is so odd and labor is low in both shifts I work, I work before and after classes, which makes many of my days be 15 hours straight of working and school together. I somewhat regret doing this because I am almost always tired and just manage to get all my schoolwork done on time, but I have no choice under certain circumstances which I will continue to explain later. The upside though is that my checks every week are fairly nice. I'm also pretty much a manager at my job but my boss is making sure himself that I fit the role.

My school's spring break wasn't the greatest for me. I worked my usual split shifts (which made absolutely no sense to me) and during the week I rushed to get all the things I wanted to get done. I got my hair cut and highlighted because I felt that I should treat myself since I have worked myself so hard for 8 weeks already (now it's been 12 weeks). And on the weekend rather than spending it for fun and myself, I went to my great-grandmother's memorial which is 3 months after her death. It was very hard for since I was close to her despite being so far away from her. Even though it was a somber event, it was nice but exhausting to see my huge family. I decided to count my actual "spring break" to be the following weekend. I took off work and had my first vacation in almost 4 years. My boyfriend and I went to Virginia Beach together so that I can meet his family while celebrating his little sister's birthday. I can see myself fitting well with them and really enjoyed meeting them.

My Prince Charming and I are doing well together. For Valentine's Day, he created a beautiful necklace that is the same image of my tattoo on my back. We spent every Saturday together when I was working Friday overnights, but now that I am working Saturday mornings we changed it to Sundays. That's because he travels an hour just to see me so I want to make every second count because he deserves that. We watch Once Upon a Time together and end up taking a nap every Sunday because I am always extremely exhausted and wiped from working so much. But, that won't be much of a problem anymore because he is moving a lot closer to me once school is over, which I think is pretty awesome. By the way, he is also an awesome cook, which I'm glad because I am almost inept at it (I do like to bake though).

So since I have been working so much, I have extra money which I have been stowing away for school and a new car. I love my car, Calypso, since she has been such a champ the last year and half that I have had her with almost 266,000 miles on her and covered in rust and dents. But, I have enough money to buy a new car (of course, used) and I found one that I almost fell in love with within my budget. I found a black 2008 Pontiac G6 that is a perfect fit for me. I just have to get the last bit of money and go through a couple loop holes in order to get it. Plus, I'll still be able to pay all the money I need for school.

That's pretty much all that happened. Sorry if it's so long, but I hope you enjoyed all the GIFs.