Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Libros en ingles. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Libros en ingles. Mostrar todas las entradas

3 de abril de 2020

Tunnel of bones de Victoria Schwab

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Información:
Título: Tunnel of bones
Autora: Victoria Schwab
Clasificación: Fantasy
Año de publicación: 2019
Páginas: 304
Editorial: Scholastic
ISBN: 978-1-407196-93-0

Trouble is haunting 
Cassidy Blake...
...undead trouble.

Cass is in Paris, in Paris, where her parents are filming their TV show about the world's most haunted cities. The TV show it's fun, but little do they know about the true ghostly danger lurking beneath Paris, in the creepy underground Catacombs.

When Cass accidentally awakens a frighteningly strong spirit, she must rely on her still-growing skills as a ghosthunter -- and turn
to friends both old and new to help her unravel a mystery. But
time is running out, and the spirit is only growing stronger. 

And if Cass fails, the force she's unleashed could haunt the city forever.


"Maybe it's because everything is spookier at night. It's why people are afraid of the dark. What you can't see is always scarier than what you can. Your eyes play tricks on you, filling in the shadows, making shapes."

A pesar de ser un middle grade esta saga de Cassidy Blake me encanta! Amo como escribe Victoria y este libro no fue la excepción. Disfruté muchísimo de leerlo y no tengo absolutamente nada que criticarle. Fue perfecto. No tiene relleno innecesario, ni partes aburridas, y la elección del malo para esta segunda entrega fue muy acertada. La historia es un poco más oscura que la anterior y es más triste. Puede que larguen un par de lagrimillas. Y ESE FINAL, my god, T R E M E N D O. Me quedé con mucha intriga, y seguramente forme parte de la tercera parte que saldrá recién el año que viene. 

Me gustó más que el primero, y eso que está ambientado en Edimburgo y yo AMO esa ciudad, pero el antagonista de esta segunda parte me gustó más. Además todo se da en las Catacumbas de Paris, otra ciudad que me encanta, pero cuando la visité hace ya varios años no fui a las Catacumbas, ahora tengo una razón para volver. Victoria con sus libros te hace querer visitar estas ciudades, justo después de leer el primer libro, me fui a Edimburgo y visité un par de lugares que menciona en la historia. Es una ciudad ideal para visitar lugares embrujados.

Como ya mencioné anteriormente (antes de irme por las ramas), esta historia transcurre en París, y en uno de los lugares en donde los padres de Cass están grabando su programa paranormal, Cassidy despierta un entidad muy fuerte y mucho más peligrosa que la del primer libro. No es tan sencillo combatirla, pero con la ayuda de Jacob, Lara y una nueva amiga llamada Adele, intentarán darle caza a este fantasma. 

No quiero dejar de mencionar que Jacob en este segundo libro está tremendo con su sarcasmo y me hizo reír un montón, fue el mejor personaje de todos. Claro que no todo serán risas pero tiene un mensaje muy fuerte acerca del verdadero valor de la amistad. Ojalá lo lean, lo recomiendo muchísimo.

Calificación: 5/5

13 de enero de 2020

Ninth House de Leigh Bardugo

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Información:
Título: Ninth House
Autora: Leigh Bardugo
Clasificación: Fantasy
Año de publicación: 2019
Páginas: 458
Editorial: Gollancz
ISBN: 978-1-473-22796-5

The mesmerising adult debut from Leigh Bardugo. A tale of power, privilege, dark magic and murder set among the Ivy League elite.

Alex Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. A dropout and the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved crime - the last thing she wants is to cause trouble. Not when Yale was supposed to be her fresh start. But a free ride to one of the world's most prestigious universities was bound to come with a catch.

Alex has been tasked with monitoring the mysterious activities of Yale's secret societies - societies that have yielded some of the most famous and influential people in the world. Now there's a dead girl on campus and Alex seems to be the only person who won't accept the neat answer the police and campus administration have come up with for her murder.

Because Alex knows the secret societies are far more sinister and extraordinary than anyone ever imagined.

They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living . . .


"This is why he had done it, not because of guilt or pride but because this was the moment he'd been waiting for: the chance to show someone else wonder, to watch them realize that they had not been lied to, that the world they'd been promised as children was not something that had to be abandoned, that there really was something lurking in the wood, beneath the stairs, between the stars, that everything was full of mystery." - Darlington.

Ufff me encantó este libro. Cuando comencé a leerlo no tenía mucha idea que esperar, además nunca había leído nada de Leigh Bardugo así que no tenía idea de como eran sus historias o de si me iba a gustar. Por eso me llevé una gran sorpresa cuando a medida que iba avanzando en mi lectura me iba gustando cada vez más. La fantasía es un generó que me suele gustar pero no es algo que me deje fascinada o despierte en mí un interés exagerado como si me sucede con otros géneros como los thrillers policiales, psicológicos, etc. o como el terror. Sin embargo, esta historia me gustó tanto que estoy más que contenta de que haya sido mi primer lectura del año.

Y reflexionando un poco creo que me gusto mucho por el hecho de que a mi me encantan tres de los componentes más fuertes de esta historia, misterio, magia y fantasmas. Así que fue un combo perfecto para un libro ideal para mí, fantasía mezclada con misterio y sucesos paranormales.

Nuestra protagonista principal es Galaxy Stern, o como a ella le gusta que la llamen, Alex. Una adolescente que llega a Yale para un nuevo comienzo, encargada de monitorear a las ocho sociedades secretas de Yale. La sinopsis del libro nos dice bastante poco de la historia, y esa fue una de las razones por las que el libro me termino gustando tanto, ya que me sorprendió mucho su trama. Darlington será el encargado de introducir a Alex en todo lo que serían las sociedades y la magia que cada una posee y a medida que vaya transcurriendo la historia iremos conociendo más acerca de ellas. El libro se divide en capítulos nombrados por las estaciones del año, que van saltando de uno a otro a medida que avanza la historia. Mucho misterio, muchos secretos, magia y fantasmas. Y una protagonista que no es lo que parece y con la que pude congeniar muchísimo. Por suerte es un muy buen personaje, ya que a veces pasa que suele haber protagonistas tan sosos que arruinan la historia.

Algunas cosas que no me gustaron y que por esos motivos no le di cinco estrellas son: no me convenció demasiado el antagonista principal, y el hecho de que hubo más de una distracción por parte de la autora para descubrir el verdadero motivo del asesinato. Porque cuando sentí que todo había acabado en realidad no fue así y quedé con demasiado información en la cabeza, que luego tuve que ordenar y que siento que debería volver a releer el libro ahora que realmente sé qué pasó. Me dejó medio confusa. Pero en fin, es un buen comienzo de saga y realmente NO puedo esperar hasta junio del 2021 para poder leer la segunda parte.

Obviamente quedaron varios interrogantes bastante picantes para una segunda parte así que espero que sea igual o más entretenido que el primer libro. Les recomiendo la lectura de esta historia si les gusta la ficción mezclada con los ingredientes que tiene la misma, aunque por el momento el libro solo se encuentra en inglés así que si no conocen el idioma o no les gusta leer en inglés espero puedan traducirlo pronto al español. Espero que les haya gustado la reseña!

3 de enero de 2020

The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

13:04 1 Comments
Información:
Título: The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe
Autora: Edgar Allan Poe; Jay Parini & April Bernard
Clasificación: Poemario
Año de publicación: 2009
Páginas: 139
Editorial: Signet Classics
ISBN: 9780451531056

Explore the transcendent world of unity and ultimate beauty in Edgar Allan Poe's verse in this complete poetry collection. Although best known for his short stories, Edgar Allan Poe was by nature and choice a poet. From his exquisite lyric "To Helen," to his immortal masterpieces, "Annabel Lee," "The Bells," and "The Raven," Poe stands beside the celebrated English romantic poets Shelley, Byron, and Keats, and his haunting, sensuous poetic vision profoundly influenced the Victorian giants Swinburne, Tennyson, and Rossetti. Today his dark side speaks eloquently to contemporary readers in poems such as "The Haunted Palace" and "The Conqueror Worm," with their powerful images of madness and the macabre. But even at the end of his life, Poe reached out to his art for comfort and courage, giving us in "Eldorado" a talisman to hold during our darkest moments--a timeless gift from a great American writer. Includes an Introduction by Jay Parini and an Afterword by April Bernard.


"Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!" - Hymn by Edgar Allan Poe

El de arriba fue uno de mis poemas favoritos de Poe. Si bien el poemario termino de leerlo el último día del año 2019 no tuve tiempo de escribir la reseña hasta hoy.
No se me hizo fácil la lectura, ya de por sí los poemas tienen su lenguaje complicado y más difícil aún es leerlo en otro idioma. Así que estuve con mi traductor al lado cada vez que lo leía.
La verdad que me gusto bastante salir de mi zona de confort leyendo un libro como este. Y más cuando se trata de Poe, que solo conocía sus historias cortas y, el único poema de él que conocía de nombre era, "The Raven".
Algunos poemas me gustaron mucho, de hecho los marque con post-it y algunos me aburrieron sinceramente. Aún así creo que era una gran escritor aunque no haya tenido demasiado reconocimiento por sus poemas cuando vivía. Además tuvo una vida muy trágica, y murió a muy corta edad.
¿Qué puedo decir de Poe que nadie conozca ya? Sabía como usar las palabras para que sus lectores sepan que estaba queriendo decir, además de tener una excelente imaginación cuando se trataba de escribir historias. Yo creo que esas historias fueron creadas a partir de las cosas malas que le habían sucedido en la vida, lamentablemente esas fueron sus inspiraciones.
No dejen de leer este poemario si tienen la oportunidad. Para conocer un poco más del Poe que casi todos conocen, a través de sus historias cortas, porque se están perdiendo de lo otro en lo que también era excelente, escribir poemas.

7 de mayo de 2019

The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

17:33 0 Comments

Información:
Title: The Near Witch
Author: Victoria Schwab
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Publication date: March 12, 2019
Pages: 355
Publisher: Titan Books
ISBN: 978-1789091120
Buy it here! 

All-new deluxe edition containing in-universe short story "The Ash-Born Boy" and a never-before-seen introduction form V.E. Schwab.

The Near Witch is only an old story
told to frighten children.

If the wind calls at night, you must
not listen. The wind is lonely, and
always looking for company.

There are no strangers in
the town of Near.

These are the truths that Lexi has heard all her life. But when an actual stranger, a boy who seems to fade like smoke, appears ouside her home on the moor at night, she knows that at least one of these sayings is no longer true.
The next night, the children of Near strat disappearing from their beds, and the mysterious boy falls under suspicion.
As the hunt for the children intensifies, so does Lexi's need to know about the witch that just might be more than a bedtime story, about the wind that seems to speak through the walls at night, and about the story of this nameless boy.
Part fairy tale, part love story, V.E. Schwab's debut novel is entirely original yet achingly familiar: a song you heard long ago, a whisper carried by the wind, and a dream you won't soon forget.


"Fear is a strange thing," he used to say. "It has the power to make people close their eyes, turn away. Nothing good grows out of fear."

Amé, amé, amé absolutamente este libro. Lo dije una vez y lo vuelvo a decir: amo profundamente la prosa de Schwab. Amo la forma que tiene de transmitir exactamente lo que quiere decir a través de las palabras y es increíble como hace que mi imaginación vuele y aparezca en mi mente lo que estoy leyendo. Hay tantas frases lindas en este libro, que literalmente me quede sin post-it y tuve que agarrar otros del mismo color pero de papel.
Lexi Harris tiene dieciséis años y vive con su madre y su hermanita de cinco años a las afueras del pueblo de Near. Hace tres años su padre falleció, sin antes haberle dejado unas cuantas enseñanzas acerca del "moor" o páramo pero sobre todo acerca de la vida y las personas. Lo que se espera de una chica de su edad es que se case con un joven, se vista apropiadamente y haga las cosas que toda señorita de su edad hace, sin embargo ella no es como las demás y pronto demostrará ser digna hija de su padre, quien era el protector de Near y además un cazador.
La historia tiene un ritmo rápido, tan así que en el primer capítulo del libro conocemos al extraño que merodea por las afueras de Near, un chico joven, apodado por Lexi, "Cole". A la noche siguiente, comienzan a desaparecer niños de sus casas y todos empiezan a sospechar de este extraño que nadie aún conoce. Lexi llevada por su instinto y su coraje no se quedará quieta un segundo y empezará a investigar acerca del extraño, acerca de lo que está sucediendo en Near y se encontrará con un cuento para dormir hecho realidad. 
Junto a Cole y las enseñanzas que le dejó su padre, desafiará al pueblo entero y descubrirá lo que está sucediendo y la forma de arreglarlo, aunque eso le causará muchos problemas.
Este libro está colmado de fantasía y además da lugar a una historia de amor. Trata no solo sobre el tema de la confianza, sino del instinto, del coraje y Lexi nos demuestra un papel muy importante al no hacer lo que se espera de ella solo por ser una chica. Desafiará a todo el mundo y sin dudas es un personaje que me encantó. 
El libro tiene un montón de cosas hermosas y no aburre en ningún momento, si bien es una historia un poco infantil también es oscuro y obviamente Schwab sabe como mezclar ambas cosas para creae esta historia tan fascinante.
Denle una oportunidad, no se van a arrepentir.

11 de abril de 2019

The Growunp by Gillian Flynn

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Information:

Title: The Grownup
Author: Gillian Flynn
Genre: Short story/Fiction/Mistery
Publication date: 17 February 2016
Pages: 79
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
ISBN: 978-1-4746-0304-1
Buy it here! 

'I watched the house. It watched me back through long, baleful windows so tall a child could stand in the sill. And one was. I could see the lenght of his thin body: gray trousers, black sweater, a maroon tie perfectly knotted at the neck. A thicket of dark hair covering his eyes..."

A young woman is making a living faking it as a cut-price psychic (with some illegal soft-core sex work on the side). She makes a decent wage mostly by telling people what they want to hear. But then she meets Susan Burke. 

Susan moved to the city one year ago with her husband and 15-year-old stepson Miles. They live in a Victorian house called Carterhook Manor. Susan has become convinced that some malevolent spirit is inhabiting their home. The young woman doesn't believe in exorcism or the supernatural. However when she enters the house for the first time, she begins to feel it too, as if the very house is watching her, waiting, biding its time . . . 

The Grownup, which originally appeared as 'What Do You Do?' in George R. R. Martin's Rogues anthology, proves once again that Gillian Flynn is one of the world's most original and skilled voices in fiction.


Soooo the story is a little weird. I've never hear of someone that does that kind of job for a living, maybe it's because I'm too young or maybe too naive for my age (I'm 22), haha, nevermind. But that makes the story, in my opinion, also very unique.
The good part of being a short story is that the action or the trouble starts inmediately. The first pages describes the childhood and the current job of the main character, in the middle is where te action begins and on the last pages whe have the closer of this story, BUT it was not what I was expecting it to be.
We can say that the story has two endings and I don´t know what ending to choose or believe in. That makes the story, again, very unique, but also I didn´t like it. I was expecting something else but the fact that the end of this original short story was so confusing makes the story much more fascinating. 

Flynn is very original when she has to write and build stories, that is a thing I cannot deny, and that's why she is one of my favourite authors. 


10 de marzo de 2019

The Sister by Louise Jensen

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Information:
Title: The Sister
Author: Louise Jensen
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 346
Publisher: Sphere
ISBN: 978-0-7515-7055-7
Buy it here!

A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER WITH
A BRILLIANT TWIST YOU WON'T SEE COMING

'I did something terrible, Grace.
I hope you can forgive me...'

Grace hasn't been the same since the death of her best friend Charlie. She is haunted by Charlie's last words, and in a bid for answers, opens an old memory box of Charlie's. It soon becomes clear there was a lot she didn't know about her best friend.

When Grace starts a campaign to find Charlie's father, Anna, a girl claiming to be Charlie's sister steps forward. For Grace, finding Anna is like finding a new family, and soon Anna has made herself very comfortable in Grace and boyfriend Dan's home.

But something isn't right. Things disappear, Dan's acting strangely and Grace is sure that someone is following her. Is it all in Grace's mind? Or as she gets closer to discovering the truth about both Charlie and Anna, is Grace in terrible danger?

There was nothing she could have done to save Charlie... or was there?

A COMPELLING, GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL
THRILLER PERFECT FOR FANS OF THE GIRL BEFORE
AND THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR.


"How quickly we can erase someone's physical presence, while their memory forever lingers."

First things first, I absolutely love the way the author write the kind of phrases that reaches your heart.
This is the story of a friendship, between Grace and Charlie, and how life can change in a minute. Grace is twenty-five years old, she works at a pre-school, has a cat call Mittens and has a boyfriend named Dan. But she also has a very deep scar, her best friend had died recently.
Her name was Charlie, she was a very loyal friend, she was Grace's best friend since they were nine years old. They were through lots of things together. But now the only thing that Grace has despite the memories, is a half gold heart on a chain engraved with 'BFF' Charlie gave her when she turned fifteen. The same day they buried a box with their 'hopes and dreams'. A box that Grace opened up later, when Charlie died, to read the content of a letter she wrote, where it said that Charlie wanted to find who her father was.
That's when Grace decided to find him. But when she started, a girl named Anna appeared, Charlie's half sister for real? We don't know that. The truth is Grace took her to live with her and her boyfriend Dan. And maybe things aren't clear for Grace, but as the story goes by we start to figure it out that Anna maybe isn't what she says she is and that the things that are happening to Grace aren't a coincidence.
Louise Jensen knows how to keep you entertained, and the novel alternates between the past and the present and that helps build up the tension.
I really liked Grace, but I find her a little naive. Especially with the Anna thing. She was paranoid all the time about things and I couldn't cop with that. She also felt guilty for things that weren't her fault, and that make me want to slap her in the face. (Sorry Louise haha). But at the end, she changes a little bit, and I'm happy she could deal with all that happened to her.
The sensation of that something was going to happen in ever chapter didn't left me since the middle of the book. I was so excited to discovered everything that I get very anxious about it. There were a lot of secrets, a lot of lies. Some lies made me very angry, and some secrets were heartbreakers.
There were a lot of things that happened in this novel, and were very well written. Everything was connected perfectly at the end and I know that if you give it a chance you will really enjoy this story. I'm really happy I didn't take the eye off of this book since I saw it on the internet and the cover called my attention.

4 de febrero de 2019

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

15:45 0 Comments
Information:

Title: City of ghosts
Author: Victoria Schwab
Genre: Fiction; Horror; Ghosts (for middle garde/young adults)
Publication date: 06 september 2018
Pages: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
ISBN:m978-1-407192-76-5
Buy it here! 

They're here.
They're watching.


Cass can pull back the Veil that separates the living from the dead.
When Cass's parents start hosting a TV show about the world's most haunted places, the family heads off to Edinburgh. Here, graveyards, castles and secret passageways teem with restless phantoms.
But when Cass meets a girl who shares her "gift", she realizes how much she still has to learn about the Veil - and herself. And she'll have to learn fast. The city of ghosts is more dangerous than she ever imagined.


"Mom likes to say I was born with one foot in winter and the other in spring. That's why I cant's sit still, and why (according to her) I'm always searching for trouble -because I don't belong to one place." - Cassidy Blake

The first thing I'm gonna say: awesome. I really love this book, it's the first Victoria's story I read but it will definitely not my last. 
Cassidy Blake lives in New York, she's twelve yearse old and she can see, listen and comunicate with ghosts. Her best friend, Jacob, is one of them. She can also pass through the Veil, but sometimes it can be hard to get out. She loves to take photos, so she take some when she crosses the Veil.
*I love how Schwab writes, it's almost like poetry, maybe it's just simple words but it feels good and they reaches your heart.*
It was right after the accident that she met Jacob and found out she can crosses the Veil a year ago.
Cassidy wants to go to the beach this summer, like every summer, but her parents knock those plans down and tell her about this TV show about the most haunted places they are going to do all over the world that starts the week they suppossed to be at the beach. So they took a plane to Edinburgh, Scotland to start filming it.
There, Cassidy met Lara, another girl like her, she can passes the Veil too, but she can also do others things that Cassidy doesn't know about.
The story starts to complicate when Cassidy visits the Greyfriars Kirk and a woman the locals call The Raven in Red appears. And when Cass get caught by her she is going to need the help from Jacob and Lara to set her free.
*The book read is fast and maybe it's a child story but it's very entertaining. I really truly recommend this one if you want to start reading Victoria, cause it's awesome.*