Hearing voices in my head.

"My current verdict would be: crazy eyes. Nice ass.""I think I want that on my tombstone," Kami said. "Remember my last wishes, if I get involved in a tragic accident with a fruit cart before I can put it in writing. So, what happened?"

I'll tell you what happened, Kami. Unspoken happened.

And it might have been the best thing that ever happened to me.

Sarah Rees Brennan had showed up on my recommendations numerous times. She was literally stalking them. And I kept telling myself, "eventually." Eventually I will check her out. Eventually I will see what all the fuss about. Eventually I will panic and give in to her list stalking. The problem was, her Demon's Lexicon books just didn't appeal to me. There was nothing about the blurb that screamed, "IF YOU DON'T READ ME YOU WILL LITERALLY DIE A THOUSAND DEATHS." Maybe it was the good little preacher's kid in me that cringed away from demons. Maybe it was the rebellious preacher's kid in me that had read too many books about demons. Whatever it was, I wasn't interested.

Then Unspoken showed up on my lists. And I thought, "Okay, Brennan. I get it. I should read you. We're a perfect match. Calm it down a little bit" and I read the blurb and came over all, "OKAY, BRENNAN. WHERE IS THIS BOOK? I MUST HAVE IT."

I'm going back, back to Morganville.

"Teach me how to do that stuff you do."

"What, be awesome? Can't do it."

Bitter Blood (Morganville Vampires #13) by Rachel Caine.

Rating: 4 of 5 stars.

The last Morganville Vampire book I read was number 12 and, well, I wasn't entirely on board with it. But I was committed to the series and they probably saved my grandma, so I decided I owed it to the Glass House Gang to keep going, to finish what I started. Thank goodness I didn't end it with number 12.

Bitter Blood was back to that delicious crackfic like quality I loved so much about books 1-11. Things kept happening, there were ghost hunters digging around and Captain Obvious was back and shooting people IN THE FACE and taking down vamps, but only sorta, not really, and people were back from the dead and Hannah was getting canned from her new job as mayor and WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH AMELIE ANYWAY. Also. Hey, Monica. Still a raging bitch?

"So, pre-school, did you follow me in here to profess your gay love or what?"

Awesome.

Claire and Shane were still adorable and slightly dysfunctional and Michael and Eve are all wedded blissed out and causing major problems because EW. INTERSPECIES RELATIONSHIPS. GROSS. And then there's drama there and it's unnecessary and so effing delicious because ANGST. IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER.

I love it.

Also? Very little POV shifting. BONUS.

And Myrnin. Oh, Myrnin. He's still just as fabulous as ever and I still love him with all my blood pumping muscle and want to have his fabulous undead vampire babies.

Rumor has it that there will be 15 books altogether in the series and you know what? I'M GAME. Let's do this, Glass House kids. Just keep your awesome flags flying.

2012 Slut Awards - Willow's picks.

2012 came and now it's headed out. The year is glancing back over its shoulder at us and giving a wave, and I imagine a smirk, because it didn't end the world. No zombies or angels, and not one vampire. 2012 was trying and exhausting, but like any book worthy of my shelf, it tested and its characters, who maybe had never even considered themselves all that tough, stood up as best they could and best of all? They fell into epic loves.

Here's to the year that didn't break us and to the books that are overcrowding both my here on the ground made of wood and nails shelves and the cloud ones. Because it's about to be 2013, you guys, and while we may not have those hoverboards McFly promised us yet, we do have shelves in clouds and that's pretty magical.

Here is my list of the new discoveries, the ones I finally read, the recommendations that turned into obsessions and the book that carved its' name onto my soul.

(I'll show you the scars.)

Cue Swooning: OPAL BOOK TRAILER REVEAL.

No one is like Daemon Black.

When he set out to prove his feelings for me, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something I’ll do again, and now that we’ve made it through the rough patches, well... There’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on.

But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they love. 

After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.

Together we’re stronger... and they know it.

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

USA TODAY Bestselling author, Jennifer L. Armentrout, lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you've heard about her state aren't true. When she’s not hard at work writing, she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell, Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She also writes adult romance under the name J. Lynn.

Find Jennifer on: Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Website | Blog

I fell in love with a Cajun.

Poison Princess by Kresley Cole
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.






Right now, Nina and I are reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, something we've talked about doing since before we even started Paper Boyfriends. In fact, The Night Circus was going to be our first collaborated review, most likely on our personal blogs and Goodreads and then Paper Boyfriends was born and now we're finally getting around to the book that sparked it all. In an effort to not get too far ahead of Nina while we read, I stopped myself halfway through and decided to start reading another book on my to-read list while I waited for her to catch up. (I'm a ridiculously fast reader who survives on little sleep. We joke that Nina is the old woman in this relationship, who goes to bed at 9pm and is up with the chickens, while I'm the frat boy, up all night partying and still awake the next morning. I digress.)

ENTER: POISON PRINCESS.

Have I ever talked about my deep and burning love for Post-Apocalyptic novels? Because it's there and it's A Thing. I love watching the world fall apart. I love when things get a little Lord of the Flies and when unlikely couples, people who would have never looked twice at each other before, end up together. I like seeing communities form and bands of people coming together to fight or to live or just to have human companionship. I love learning to navigate broken worlds and establishing new normals and I love watching characters rise up to become survivors.

I love guys like Jackson Deveaux. 

Nerd Girl Chats: Angelfall Edition.

Have you heard of Angelfall by Susan Ee?
Please. Stop everything.
Hold the phone and pump the brakes, because everything everyone is saying about this book IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE AND REAL AND MY EMOTIONS ARE EVERYWHERE RIGHT NOW.

So. Talking it out between Pen-rye-n & me was obviously necessary. We go through the whole book, with appropriate fangirling and end of the world worrying over body hair, so be warned of spoilers for those of you who don't know the pure AWESOME happening here, and if you do? Jump in, get your downy wings dirty because the world has ended and things are gonna get bananas BUT THERE IS A QUEST.

And smokin' hot shirtless angels. And girls who pack knives in their boots. And moms who are off the rails.
Yeah, I know. It's sooo good.

Willow: Also, ANGELFALL. How is this happening?

Pen-rye-n: RIGHT. OMG. How bloody amazing was it? Scale of 1 to ALL THE FANGIRLING?

Willow: ALL OF THE FANGIRLING. PUT THEM IN A JAR, SHAKE THEM, THEN SPREAD THEM OVER MY BODY.
  ....okay, wait.

YA saves.

Over here at Paper Boyfriends, we talk books. Either in the form of reviews or essays or nerd chats or articles, the topic is always going to center around books. Because that's what we do. Nina and I wear many hats in our lives, but at the heart of us, at the core, we are readers.

And today, the day I turned 27, being the reader that I am paid off in a big way.

Right now, my little family and I are visiting my mom, stepdad, sister and grandma in Tennessee. The husband had to visit the VA here and so my boys and I decided to tag along and spend mine & my mama's birthdays together. This morning started off like any other. I got up. Ate cake for breakfast, because if you can't eat cake for breakfast on your 27th birthday, when can you? Afterwards, I wandered outside to smoke my morning cigarette and crack open the latest book I'm reading. I was lost in the world Julia Hoban created when I heard my mom scream out my name. My full name. And I knew as I was dropping my half smoked cigarette and running for the door it had to be serious, because I've always been and always will be her baby name for me unless something is desperately wrong.

And it was. Oh, God, it was.

A town bursting with vamps: Morganville 1-12

Morganville Vampire Series (1-12) by Rachel Caine.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.




Oh, Morganville, I shouldn't love you like I do.

Here's the thing, The Morganville Vampires series aren't particularly good books. I can think of at least one major continuity problem. Apparently getting shot in Morganville translates to a stab wound? Pretty major screw up. They're rollarcoasty and often end with a cliffhanger and in books 10 & 11, we get treated to alternating POV's, often a shift from third person limited to first person then back to third. Claire Danvers is a strong character, with no real physical attributes given to her. In 11 books, all I can tell you about Claire is that she's on the small side and has short hair, which is probably brown but also maybe red. Basically, she could be anybody anywhere, and maybe it's so we can slip her on like a pair of jeans. I don't know. Aside from Monica and her pack dogs, everyone mostly loves her unless it's crucial to the plot that they don't. She's insanely smart, pretty talented, and despite going on and on about how she's the biggest geek ever, she ends up with one of the hottest boys in town who is insanely in love with her. She's a little Mary Sue, is what I'm saying here. Not the Maryest Sue that ever did Sue, she's no Bella Swan, but she is on the scale. And maybe a 5.

But, God, all that said, I could not stop reading. It's like the best crackfic ever. Things are always happening in Morganville and Claire and the Glass House gang are always smack dab in the middle, getting the hell beat out of them. This we can get to Caine hands down. She has no qualms about putting her characters through the ringer. Even if their wounds change over the course of the books.

Roads made of blood and lands of dust.

Blood Red Road by Moira Young
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars.





I am a total dystopian, post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, everything going to shit, junkie. I don't know what it is about this genre that I'm so crazy about, but it's there and it's a thing and I'm damn near obsessed with it.

Blood Red Road is getting a ton of crazy good reviews and, from what I understand, it's already been picked up by Ridley Scott to be made into a movie. And you know what? I completely understand why. 

Oh, Augustus. I do too.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
Rating: 5 of 5 stars.

"Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you."

DISCLAIMER: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS AFTER THE CUT.

It's been months now since I finished this book and I am still absolutely gutted every time I think about it. My thoughts are stars I still can't fathom into constellations. (DID U C WUT I DID THAR...AGAIN?)  GREEN, YOU MADE ME FEEL SO MANY FEELINGS.  

And I guess you could argue this is an annoying way to review, but dammit, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it because visuals are so very needed. Yes. This is going down in .gif form.

Nerd Girl Chats: Lux Edition.

"Wait! We weren't done yet. Hey Pepe, can you say glow stick?"

So, Willow and I found ourselves on gchat the other night and we were discussing random things, birthday parties and crybaby husbands with the sniffles when suddenly:

P: UM I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'LL EVEN GET THIS OR IF YOU'RE CURRENTLY PARTYING HARD BUT HOLY FUCK DID YOU SEE THIS: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13362536-opal AND THE SYNOPSIS IS BACK UP AND I'M KINDA DOING SOME CRYBABY BIEBER TEARS OVER HERE.

Beiber? Bieber? Whatever.

W:...a lot of spontaneous combustion? Give me a minute.

P: I was looking through our Lux reviews earlier, trying to figure out how to combine them and I found all these Daemon extras Armentrout posted on her site and I AM DISTURBED BY HOW BADLY THIS SERIES HAS MADE ME LOSE MY SHIT.

P: But seriously? Those extras? Good shit, dude. I'm not saying I threw my panties at the computer, but I'm not saying I didn't either.

W: Wait....wait. There are extras. Extras with Daemon?

P: YOU DIDN'T KNOW?!

W: Uh, no, dude. I didn't know this. I'm getting squeaky right now

P: OH GIRLFRIEND. LET ME SEDUCE YOU.

Crazy feminists & the boys who love them.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars.




I liked Graceling. Let's get that out of the way right now, before I start talking ethics and agendas and propaganda. I liked Graceling and I think Cashore is a pretty awesome writer and I plan on continuing with this series because it's original and exciting and things happen and I like when things happen. Katsa is the kinda heroine I adore, a girl who isn't motivated by a man or her love for that man and is not a damsel in distress, but instead will take a bitch out by herself. There's quests. I love quests. The only thing that would have made this story more epically amazing is if Katsa found a dragon and trained it and together, she and her dragon steed, flew around the kingdoms, striking wrong-doers down and chomping them. Perhaps breathing a little fire for kicks. Po was just there, and I liked that he was just there, that this male character was suddenly the Love Interest that is just hanging around and does some things, sure, but not like The Hero. I liked seeing those roles reversed. 

And I liked that Katsa was anti-marriage, anti-baby and pro-sex. Okay, perhaps pro-sex isn't the best word, but, she had a sexual relationship with Po, with no plans for marriage. You know what they say, "it's not premarital sex if you have no plans on getting married." Or maybe that was just me who said that. To my dad. Who is a preacher.  ....awkward.

ANYWAY!

Oh, Tina T, you're breaking my heart.

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
Rating: 5 of 5 stars.


There's some zombie books where things constantly happen. There's constant fights and narrow escapes and the entire story, you're on the edge of your seat, waiting for the next thing to happen.

This is Not a Test isn't that book.

My soul for a dragon.

Defiance by C.J. Redwine
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.



Wait. Stop right there. Stop giving me the side eye for my 4 stars. Let me explain.

There are dragons.

Okay. They're kinda like dragons. Like, practically dragons, but they don't fly so they're basically dragon mutants or something but they have scales and wicked tails and they breathe fire. DRAGONS, OKAY. NOT-DRAGONS. KINDA-DRAGONS. DRAGONS ARE AWESOME.

There was some crazy stuff going on in the Defiance world. There was tyrannical leaders, and oppression and widely accepted misogynistic attitudes and highway robbers and fucking Tree People and sweet bread baking old men and secrets and spies and sword fights and crazy tech inventions and DEFIANCE (I C WUT U DID THAR) and it was a lot of awesomeness topped with a lukewarm romance. If you ignore the romance aspect of it (and good Lord, that was hard, especially towards the end,) it was glorious.