Angel Eyes

Once you’ve seen, you can’t unsee. Everything changes when you’ve looked at the world through . . .

ANGEL EYES

Brielle’s a ballerina who went to the city to chase her dreams and found tragedy instead. She’s come home to shabby little Stratus, Oregon, to live with her grief and her guilt . . . and the incredible, numbing cold she can’t seem to shake.

Jake’s the new guy at school. The boy next door with burning hands and an unbelievable gift that targets him for corruption.

Something more than fate has brought them together. An evil bigger than both of them lurks in the shadows nearby, hiding in plain sight. Two angels stand guard, unsure what’s going to happen. And a beauty brighter than Jake or Brielle has ever seen is calling them to join the battle in a realm where all human choices start.

A realm that only angels and demons—and Brielle—can perceive.


 Violent Content
The violence in this is not as graphic as it could have been, but it was still fairly intense. A woman is supposed to have been beaten to death by her boyfriend. Angels and demons have battles that are pretty comparable to a E10+ video game. A demon wounds a girl in order to force a boy to reveal his talent, she ends up dying. All and all, the violence was not a problem, very minor.


Sexual Content
I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of sexual content in the book, considering that it does have a romance that figures hugely into the plot. 
The romance was spectacular, Shannon managed to show that Brielle was attracted to Jake, without going overboard. Brielle is very acutely aware of where Jake is, and when he touches her (which he does mostly accidentally) but it's not entirely because she likes him. It also has to do with the fact that he has an aura of otherworldly (!) heat around him. I loved how she kept it realistic(to the extent of my knowledge), but still very very clean.
Brielle is flustered at one point, and blurts out "Why are you so hot?" referring to the fact that his hands are very hot, and doesn't really think about how it would sound. This leads to some funny, gentle joking on his part. 
However, Brielle's friend refers to Jake as "Hot Guy," which is uncomfortable for Brielle, and a bit annoying to me as a reader. Brielle's friend also says that Brielle needs a "'fling' with a hot guy" The extent of what she considers a 'fling' is not specified, but Brielle recognizes that a 'fling' with a 'hot guy' is the last thing she needs.
Jake kisses Brielle, and after he leaves, she realizes that she left her phone at his house, and she comments that her resolve doesn't stand a chance if she heads back to get it. The statement could be taken multiple ways.
Jake is showing Brielle around his house, and they sit on his bed while he explains the whole angel/demon shenanigans. Canaan comes in, and Brielle fully recognizes how the situation might be perceived as awkward.
Brielle mentions that her friend never bought into "All that crap about sex and youth being all that was in demand."
We learn that a girl was pregnant with her boyfriend's child. This is not condemned or encouraged.
One of the demons is a leader of a human trafficking ring, and there's a scene where 'buyers' are coming to look at the 'merchandise.' Maybe it's just me, but, while I had a good idea of what was going on, I didn't know exactly what it was until I saw an anti-human trafficking add in the back. The scenes were handled very delicately, and I don't think they're a big problem.


Language
Some very mild language was used. Crap was used maybe twice, and I think that was it.




Wow. That's all I can say. Wow. I loved this book so much I can't even tell you. It was amazing, and I'm not just saying that because I just read it. Actually, I just read it yesterday, so you're safe from stupid fan-girl raving. :)
This is one of the few young-adult books that I would hand to my friends with minimal hesitation. Honestly, the sexual content, while it may look like a lot, you never even really notice it. Well, you do, but, anyway, it's not a huge part of the story. It was handled very delicately, and you could tell that Shannon knew what she was doing.
I adore this book, it had a whole new perspective to spiritual warfare that I'd never really dwelt on before. It was wonderfully written, had an engaging plot, and a heartwrenchingly real heroine. Not to mention an amazingly concerned and attentive hero.
I rate it PG. That's how low the content in it was. It sounds like a lot the way I put it, but it really isn't. I highly recommend the book, and can't say enough about how I loved it!

Insurgent

One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth's much-anticipated second book of the dystopian Divergent series is another intoxicating thrill ride of a story, rich with hallmark twists, heartbreaks, romance, and powerful insights about human nature

Language
About the same as before, I didn't really notice anything.

Violence
Erm...it kinda sorta ramped up quite a bit. There's a lot of fighting-to-kill. Not quite Mockingjay level, but pretty similar. I'm not sure how to describe it. I'll read the book again and take better note, but for now I'll just say that if you've seen Star Wars, the body count is about the same.
Oh, and there's the needles that they get hit with and Tris spends a lot of time ripping out of people. 
Oh, and there's Tris's complete inability to handle a gun, ever since she killed Will (sob, nobody should ever kill someone named Will!). 
The one scene I remember very clearly was when the Dauntless Renegades (the ones under the control of our bad guys) capture a bunch of Divergent, and Eric shoots a boy in the head (I was crying and screaming at that point.). In return, Tris stabs him with a pocket knife. Barf. More PTSD, as you can imagine.
There's quite a bit of run-round-the-corner-shoot-em-down, but not very much gory description. None at all, actually. 
Four, um...makes a calculated political move that results in him beating up his father.

Sexual Content
I hate writing these segments. They're so awkward. Here goes.
So, Four and Tris have a thing for each other, as you know. (Those of you who have read Divergent: I refuse to use the name Tobias. It just doesn't have that ring to it.)
Well, Tris has a nightmare - a really bad one. So what does she do? Does she go find her brother? No, because he's a tool-head. Okay, not her brother, so who does she go find? Four, of course. Never even occurs to her to go find someone else.
This is where it goes beyond Catching Fire. She's wearing a long shirt, she forgot to put on shorts (although, personally, I wouldn't sleep in just a shirt. jus' sayin') Four wakes up and asks what's wrong, but she won't tell him, she just climbs into bed with him. Cringe. And then start kissing. Cringe. She describes, briefly, how he hugs her, and how her shirt rides up. Cower. But before things get really really bad, he brushes her shoulder that got shot, and it kinda snaps her back into reality, and she pulls away.
Here are her exact words. "I can't be with him in that way if one of my reasons for wanting it is to distract myself from grief." So, in other words, she made the right decisions, for the wrong choices. That really bugs me. Like really really bugs me.
On the whole, if you've seen Hulk, that's about what this scene is. It's not described too in-depth, but it is still very uncomfortable.
She also says that when Four touches her, she doesn't feel bad about the way she's built.
There's a semi-cute segment that really makes you think of Catching Fire.
"Sleep," he says. "I'll fight the bad dreams off if they come to get you."
"With what?"
"My bare hands, obviously."
Tris and Four sleep near each other at other points in the novel, but never quite with each other.




Okay. This one is a bit heavier with that scene above, but that's the only thing in it in terms of sex. I didn't like that scene, and it makes me wonder a bit about the author, but aside from that, the book was even better than the first.
I screamed, I laughed, I cried, I got really really mad. In short, it had all the emotional connections that the Hunger Games didn't. I love the HG, and the HG has a better plot line, but I was more attached to the characters in this book.
I don't hesitate over the PG-13 rating, and I hope hope hope that the third one is still okay, content wise.

Divergent

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves… or it might destroy her.

Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the literary scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.


Language
I didn't keep track, but the Lord's name was used in vain in various ways a couple times. "Hellion" was one I noticed, and I think they said "crap" 
In other words, there wasn't anything that really caught my attention - I almost always notice swear words.

Violence
When Tris joins Dauntless, the initiation ceremony is brutal.  The first thing you have to do is jump on and off a moving train. One boy refuses, and one girl misses. Afterward, they learn fighting, and have to fight each other. There's a lot of friction between the initiates, and one gets stabbed in the eye with a butterknife. Another initiate commits suicide because he wasn't doing well enough, and didn't want to be factionless (I'll talk more about this below). 
Someone is kidnapped, essentially groped, and then dangled over the edge of the huge cavern before she's rescued.
We learn that a boy was brutally beaten by his father with a belt 'for his own good.'
Tris beats a girl until she passes out during a match - it should be noted that the girl mercilessly bullied Tris, but I really didn't like how Four had to pull Tris away.
Toward the end, everyone falls under a simulation - their brains are controlled by a computer - besides Tris and Four. They have to fight their way out, and Tris ends up panicking and shooting one of her friends. Her instinct is to shoot to kill. She also shoots another person in the arm to get information. In order to release Four from the simulation, she stops fighting, as if to let him kill her.




Sexual Content
Tris is originally Abnegation, so when she sees people kissing in the lunch room, she sorta freaks out. xD Al likes Tris and tries to put his arm around her, but she rejects him as kindly as possible.
Tris comes out of the bathroom in a towel, because she forgot her clothes, and some of the bullies are waiting there. She grabs her dress just as one of them snitches her towel. She's able to cover herself, but the incident is cruel, and leads to lots of teasing about her body type.
And then there's the whole kidnapping scene (see above).
Okay, gonna tell you up front; Tris lurves Four. As in Wove Twue Wove (okay, maybe not.) Even though he's 18 and she's 16. And Four lurves Tris. But they have to keep their relationship a secret, since Four is one of the trainers, otherwise the others will think that her good ranking is due to his affection for her.
There's also an awkward moment when they kiss in a traincar (alone, as usual {stupid stupid stupid idea}) and she sits on him...awk-wurrrrd
Probably the heaviest part of the book is Tris's simulation. One of her fear landscapes involves Four and her in a room with a bed. He starts undressing her, and she quite firmly tells him that she will not have sex with him in a simulation. The whole thing is mortifying, if you ask me, because other Dauntless leaders were watching o.0
Afterward, she asks Four what his intentions are, since she's so much younger than he is. He tells her that he has no intention of asking her to have sex with him, but later on, if she still likes him, maybe they can. There's no mention of marriage, which annoyed me. Then, toward the end of the book, Four actually tells Tris that he loves her, and I was going "What the heck? you spent 75% of the book kissing, and you think you need to tell her that now? What did the kissing mean then??"
There's also a part where Four is showing Tris his tattoos, and takes off his shirt. He jokes gently with her about asking him to undress.


Other Negative Content
Tris refuses to forgive someone who did something horrible to her, and that leads to him committing suicide. She feels horrible, to her credit, and realizes that her forgiveness could have saved him. But then the Dauntless praise his death, they call it brave. Tris disagrees with that, she sees his suicide as an act of cowardness. 
Dauntless people, including Tris, get tattoos.
Tris starts to abandon her uptight and restricting upbringing in favor of the looser Dauntless lifestyle (which is not a bad thing, but she becomes more accepting of clothing choices and kissing. She herself wears a shirt that bares her shoulders)




If the simulation thing hadn't cropped up, I would totally recommend this book to ANYONE looking for a heart-stopping, stay-up-all-night, spend-$14-on-the-next-book-and-scream-that-the-third-isn't-out-yet, adventure. It's amazing. However, the simulation did crop up, so you'll just have to decide if it's something you want to deal with or not.


Edit: After a few days of stewing on it, I should tell you that I've realized that I'm not at all fond of her romance. It doesn't seem like romance to me; just physical attraction. It's definitely not a "Katniss and Peeta" or "Darcy and Lizzie" type love. I mean, it might be, but she dwells a lot on skin-on-skin touches, and Tris's reaction to it. That might be realistic, but to me, it just sounds kinda pervy.

PG-13. Despite my dislike of her romance, the book is awesome!

Torrent: River of Time Series, Book 3

When Gabi and Lia finally learn to surf the river of time, they realize they must make hard choices about life and love in the third and final book in the River of Time series.

Gabi and Lia Betarrini have learned to control their time travel, and they return from medieval Italy to save their father from his tragic death in modern times.

But love calls across the centuries, and the girls are determined to return forever—even though they know the Black Plague is advancing across Europe, claiming the lives of one-third of the population. In the suspenseful conclusion of the River of Time series, every decision is about life … and death.

Cascade: River of Time Series - Book 2

Mom touched my underdress—a gown made six hundred years before—and her eyes widened as she rubbed the raw silk between thumb and forefinger. She turned and touched Lia’s gown. “Where did you get these clothes?”
     Gabi knows she’s left her heart in the fourteenth century and she persuades Lia to help her to return, even though they know doing so will risk their very lives. When they arrive, weeks have passed and all of Siena longs to celebrate the heroines who turned the tide in the battle against Florence—while the Florentines will go to great lengths to see them dead.

     But Marcello patiently awaits, and Gabi must decide if she’s willing to leave her family behind for good in order to give her heart to him forever.