Cover Love: Masque Of The Red Death

So I recently started reading Masque Of The Red Death by Bethany Griffin. I am really enjoying it so far and no matter how  hard I try I cannot find something bad. Which made me stop trying to find something.
I looked at the book the other day how it was sitting there on my nightstand and I knew: It is time for another Cover Love post.
The thing is, I really think the English cover is beautiful. But I bought the book in my local bookstore which means I have the German copy. And I just love the German Cover! It is so gorgeous!

The German title is Die Stadt des roten Todes - Das Mädchen mit der Maske, which translates to City of the red death - The girl with the masque.
I really love the font and the tattoo of the girl, the colours look beautiful together and the whole atmosphere is intriguing. I love the ruins of the city in the back. The cover captures the story.
The only thing I dislike: There are too many models on YA covers. What happened to the good old fonts? And the cover makes the book look like a romance story. Which it might be. I haven't read much so I do not know anything about the romance going on between the pages...

Let's compare it to the original American Cover:
The model stayed. The colours stayed, which is a great thing since does colours look amazing together! I just don't get why it looks like she is standing in a swamp... Well maybe I get to that part of the story when I keep on reading :)

Which cover do you prefer?
Love and Words
KJ

Book Challenge Day 13: Hobbit, Thief Lord and Blood Promise

Today's prompt for the 30 Day Book Challenge:

Favourite Book Of Your Favourite Author

I already told you that I can not decide who my favourite author is in the last post. So I am telling you my three favourite books  by my three favourite authors!

1. The first one was Richelle Mead and I already told you that Blood Promise is my favourite book by her. I really think I should read her other series, too, so my answers will get a little variety :)
I loved Blood Promise because of all the great character interactions. Some of the best scenes of the whole series go down in this book. And let me not get started on all the tragic...

TBR News...

So here is our weekly TBR update, a little earlier than normaly. I will answer three questions that the people over on the Penguin Teen Australia Blog answer every week, too.

1. What is new on your shelf?

I went book shopping with my best friend yesterday (yes, I did it again :D) and I bought Masque Of The Red Death by Bethany Griffin, I Heard That Song Before by Mary Higgins Clark, and How Nature Has Changed History by Erik Durschmied. I am really looking forward to reading all of these three. I already started with Masque and I am enjoying it so far. So expect a review soon :)

2. What have you just finished on your shelf?

The last book I finished was Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier. I really loved it. I watched the movie which was fabulous. You can find a review for both here on the blog just follow the tags.

3. What is the most anticipated book you want to read next?

Definitely, hands down, Sapphire Blue by Kerstin Gier. I really need to find out what happens next but I unfortunately already spend all my money on books for this month :D

How would you answer the questions this week?

Love and Words

KJ

Book Challenge Day 13: Favourite Writer

Your Favourite Writer

I seriously do not have a favourite writer... I mean I love so many writers that it is more than hard to pick just one! So I tried to nail it down to three:
I really love Richelle Mead. Her writing style is great and the worlds she creates are wonderful. Unfortunately I never had the chance to read anything other than her Vampire Academy series.
J.R.R. Tolkien would be another author on my all time favourite list. I am sure that you cannot love High Fantasy without at least trying to read Tolkien.
Finding a third one is really hard because I have so many authors on my mind that I love and that would be a great addition to this list.
But I go with Cornelia Funke because I love reading her stories since I was around the age of 10. Her Inkheart trilogy showed me how mighty words can be and I am more than sure that she and her books are one of the reasons I want to be a writer myself.

How would you answer this prompt?
You can find the full 30 Day Book Challenge on the Challenge site of this blog :)

Love and Words
KJ

Book to Movie: Ruby Red

So I promised I would tell you what I thought about the Ruby Red movie.
First of all I have to say two things:

1. I really really hope that this movie will be translated into English. It is really a good movie and the actors and production company would deserve it. And the fans would deserve it, too!

2. I started to watch this movie with really low expectations. I can name at least three bad movies based on books and only one or two good ones. But I was really excited to see it anyway.

Most of the actors did not look like I imagined the characters. Not at all. But I do not care about such things since I always think that the actors need to be able to act and not look good or as I expected the characters to look. And I have to say the amazing actors are the main reason why this movie was so good.

The whole atmosphere was sometimes to girly for me or they tried to hard to be scary with lightning and criptic movies (I mean what was up with that strange ritual at the begining?). But the actors embodies the characters so good that I did not care about some really strange scenery things. 

At first I really disliked Jannis Niewöhner as Gideon since he was so different from my imagination. After seeing the whole movie I now have to say that he played a great Gideon, he got the sarcastic and cold side as perfect as the caring moments.
They casted two of my favourite German actors, Josephine Preuß as Lucy Montrose and Kostja Ullmann as James the ghost, which made the whole movie even better for me. And aunt Maddy was, hands down, a perfect casting choice as well as Charlotte.
I think it was a little sad that they cut Caroline completely. I did not see the sense behind that.

I really liked the fact that they changed the begining and Gwen's second and third jump through time. She actually meets someone familiar which gave the whole thing more flair.
It was a little strange that she knew exactly nothing about the time traveling gen in the begining. It made the first part of the movie seem really rushed and her actions and motivations were not completely clear for me.

Aunt Maddy's vision and Gideon's first appereance were in my opinion over done and made the whole movie look like a movie for little girls that tried to hard at being spooky/romantic.
The only thing that I really really disliked was the fact that they did not stick to the cronologic plotline of the book and that they added so much from the second book into it.

Over all the negative parts were definitely smaller than the positiv ones and the actors were just great. Their perfect performance made me really like this movie.
So I do recommend it! This movie gets a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars. It is definitely a great based on a book movie.
Love and Words
KJ

"Review" of Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier

Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

SPOILERS! Seriously if you have not read the book do not read this review!
I would really love to write a spoiler free review of this book, but I cannot do it because that would mean I am not allowed to talk about all these awesome things that happened. And it is one of these hard to write reviews where all I want to say is: It is awesome, go and read it!
And before I start to completely fangirl over this book and the fact that I can now see the movie (yay!) let's get some facts straight:

The writing style was good but I sometimes felt it was a little too casual. That on the other hand made sense since it was told from the point of view of a teenager. And maybe it put me off from time to time because I just outgrew this kind of thinking...
The idea and plot was really great. I loved the whole trust-no one-thing. Usually plots like this are really forseeable for me but I have to say that when it comes to this book I have no single clue who to trust. They all do not seem trustworthy enough for me.
I really adored the characters! Especially Lesley the lovely side kick :) She was so cute and tried to help as best as she could. My friends are amazing but I would not mind having her in our clique, too.

And now: May the fangirling begin! (This is where the descent review ends)

I just love the first kiss scene! Not the one at the end of the book where they are in the church. But the first one, when she jumps through time the second time and sees herself kissing Gideon. It was clear from the begining that these two would end up together. And I really hate it when a romance story is so obvious to the reader but the main characters just do not get it. Because of that little scene the awkward I-kind-of-no-who-you-will-end-up-with turned into actual knowing which, in my opinion, turned the whole thing around and I really liked that.

I have a very great theory about Gwen's heritage and the whole mystery about Lucy and Paul.
For me it is really clear that they are the true parents of Gwen. Lucy stayed with Gwen's mum until she gave birth to her and then ran away with Paul. We already know that those two are in love and that they want to stop the Circle from completing the ritual. It would definitely explain why Paul is so protective over Gwen, why she is the only girl in her line with black hair (Ned Stark's rule of hair colour based gen tests always works!), and why Lucy says she looks like him.
It makes perfect sence. And i just love Lucy and Paul together. The whole "Marrying on the Titanic"-thing was drop dead gorgeous.
I just love the book. Therefore I am more than desperate to get my hands on the next book and find out how their story continues. The ending had a really mean cliff hanger that was not really a cliff hanger.

The only thing that got me really confused was the fact that everyone was talking about Gwen having magic and she said she does not have magic though she is the only one that can see ghosts. Does that not count as magic? But if I am alowed to speculate about the next two books: I am sure it is a good thing no one knows this detail.

Fun Fact: When Gwen's mom tells her about the wardens for the first time she mentions Karl of Hessen-Kassel as one of it's former members. That may be not important for you and I am only bringing it up because I lIVE in Hessen-Kassel :D

And I just have to say: I am a little proud that this is a German book that got turned into a movie. You know I do not know many German authors that are succesful abored. Two would cross my mind right now: Kai Meyer and Cornelia Funke, maybe even Wolfgang Hohlbein. But the majority of these worldwide bestsellers you hear about in the blogosphere are Amercian or English. And do not get me wrong I think one of the great things about globalization (maybe the only great thing)is the fact that I am able to read all those amazing books. It is just nice to know that a few people are holding up the flag of my hometime, too :)

And now I am off to see the movie so I can give you guys a full book to movie review :)
Love and Words
KJ

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