My Thoughts: Crave by JR Ward

I love to read. We all know that. For me it's a little bit of an addiction, and sometimes not in a good way. I sometimes need to physically pull myself away from a book, tell myself OK Girlie, no more. So when I read a book and find that it's not all that hard for me not to read it I know something is wrong.

When reading JR Ward's new one in her Fallen Angel series: Crave, I found that it was pretty easy to put down and do other things. Not because I didn't like it (I did to an extent) but simply because it was too long.

I have posted about this woman and her Black Dagger Brotherhood series and how much I looooooove it. Any book in this series could be 1000 pages and it still wouldn't be long enough. However with the Fallen Angel series both books have topped off at over 450 pages, and for a new series, new characters, new everything, it got a little boring at around page 250, especially knowing that there was still 200+ pages to read.

But... Crave was a lot better, story wise, then Covet (book one) was. Maybe it was the second book and I knew what to expect. When I first read Covet I was a little disappointed because the Black Dagger Brotherhood series is soooooo good, and I had high high expectations for this new series. Like really high, and it was meh, a little busy and convoluted. So much in one book, so long. The second was less busy (still pretty convoluted) there was a little less to follow, and I liked the characters more. They were a little more believable, a little less pathetic.

Overall this isn't the greatest series, although it really isn't all that bad either, I'll probably keep reading it. I really love her other series and would rather read more of that then this new one.

My Thoughts: Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

I am currently working my way through my undergraduate degree in Conflict Resolution and Psychology, with the intention of doing some crisis counselling. Helping people is what I am passionate about, and helping someone who really doesn't have any where else to go, or anyone else to turn to is something that has pulled at my heart for a long time now. Victims of abuse, sexual assault, addiction, people who need marriage or grief counselling, doesn't matter their age, those are the kinds of people I want to be there for.

I recently read Sarah Dessen's novel Dreamland, and it really pulled at my desire to reach out to people, to listen and to hear.

This was not like a lot of her other novels (well the one other that I have read).

Dreamland was about a 16 year old girl who tries to find herself after her 18 year old sister runs away. She does find herself, but not in a good way. Caitlin thinks she's found everything she's ever wanted when she first meets Rogerson. He's older and more mature and slightly edgy. Which is exactly what newly independent Caitlin wants. But things go terribly wrong the first time Rogerson hits her.

The first time Rogerson hit Caitlin I knew that is was going to happen, but it still had me bawling my eyes out. My heart was broken, I felt like I could feel everything that this 16 year old was going through, and I wanted to scream at everything that she was losing. This poor girl. Her parents were caught up in the uncharacteristic behaviour or her older sister and and didn't notice Caitlin's free fall into a pretty messed up situation. The girl makes some pretty lousy choices throughout the book.

This story was amazing, truly. It dealt with some pretty heavy material but it had some humour to lighten things up without taking away from the severity of the situation.

The one thing that I wish it had however was some kind of disclaimer, or an announcement about what teens could do when faced with similar circumstances.