The Rose Society by Marie Lu

Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, and she destroyed them all…

The Rose Society by Marie Lu is the sequel to the highly acclaimed and really damn awesome The Young Elites, the story of children who are stricken with a blood fever and come out the other side maimed, but gifted with incredible powers.

The story picks up where we last left Adelina Amouteru, now known and feared as the White Wolf – and she’s got her heart set on revenge. Gathering her own team of Young Elites, she moves to strike down the Inquisition Axis who tried to kill her in the past.

But there is a darkness inside her that keeps growing – and it’s so hard to cling to the good when your very existence roots itself in evil.

The Rose Society is absolutely awesome. Everyone and their mother by now knows that I loved The Young Elites. Very much. And it is always such a delight when a sequel is everything you wanted and more.

Somehow, The Rose Society manages to be darker than The Young Elites – which is extremely impressive.

The emotive and incredibly descriptive narrative follows Adelina into her incredible troubled head space, as she slowly becomes more and more twisted due to her abilities. You feel Adelina’s pain and despair throughout the entire novel, and although you’re troubled by her decisions, Marie Lu’s incredible writing lets you sympathise and understand her entirely.

Your morals and emotions are constantly pushed, torn between despairing for Adelina and how the Daggers have cast her out, to being so frustrated that her anger and darkness are only making matters worse. You feel genuinely as torn as she does about turning against them and fighting them, about her glimmer of hope that things could be okay again – but knowing deep down they won’t be.

This book also explores more of this incredible world Lu has built – there are more Young Elites in this book joining Adelina, all of whom are absolutely wonderful, shelled out characters who are rich and full of life and story without engulfing the main plot. They have these absolutely fascinating, unique personas and these fantastic new powers – everything is just so original and wonderfully crafted.

I’m so excited to see more of these new Elites and explore their relationships – and of course, I’m always excited to see the old Elites and the Daggers – even if I’m so utterly torn in how I feel about them.

And, finally, the end revelation is absolutely damn perfect for a middle arc in a series – it doesn’t leave on an irritating cliffhanger – but it has left us with an intense revelation which makes us desperate for the next part.

Overall, The Rose Society is perfect. It’s dark, gritty, edge-of-your-seat action and drama throughout most of the novel. This beautiful fantasy world is built with incredible narrative and wonderful characters that are put together masterfully by Marie Lu. It pulls no punches, with a narrative that makes you flinch and yet yearn for more of this action filled world. Watching the main character descend into a dark, villainous headspace, feeding the darkness in her is troubling, and yet you feel desperate for more, unable to turn away from what Adelina is becoming.

I honestly could not recommend this series enough, and I am beyond excited for the release of “The Midnight Star.”

Fare thee well,

Fran

Martin Freeman’s Role Announced for ‘Captain America: Civil War’

Martin Freeman’s role in Captain America: Civil War has finally been announced to eager fans everywhere!

Ever since the announcement of Martin Freeman joining the cast for Marvel’s next highly anticipated blockbuster, the internet has been in mass speculation about who he could be – wonder no longer internet, we finally have a reveal!

Freeman will be taking on the role of Everett Ross.

Everrett K. Ross worked for theU.S. State Department; his job was to escort foreign diplomats on American soil. One of his duties was to escort T’Challa during his visit to New York City – so this can more than likely fit him beautifully into Black Panther and lead him to a broader contract in the future.

It’s also been revealed that in Civil War, he will feature as a member of  Joint Counter Terrorist Centre in Germany – the Russo’s say that this return to Germany for Cap will bring him full circle and be one of his most challenging moments yet – rough.

It’s set to be that Captain America: Civil War is going to be the heart-breaker of the year from Marvel comics – and it hits cinemas in April. Catch the trailer below:

 

Deadpool & His Red Suited Booty

(Alternative title: Why Deadpool and His Red Suited Booty Deserve Everything)

It’s safe to say that Deadpool is one of the highest anticipated movies of 2016, and with damn good cause.

The Deadpool movie has been in the works for over 11 years now – work on the movie began in 2004. 2004. That is an insane amount of time for a movie to remain in development hell, especially a movie that was so wanted and begged for by the fandom.

There were multiple issues with Deadpool and the studios that were interested – could we make it an R-Rating? How do we not repeat the same mistakes? How do we introduce all these elements from the Deadpool comics, namely his fourth-wall breaking? Over and over again, Deadpool seemed to hit a brick wall. IMDB would tease dates, at one point reading 2014 before resorting back to those Godawful “????” they put in the place when nothing is decided. It honestly looked like fans were never going to get this damn movie, and they seemed to accept it bitterly.

Until that faithful day in July 2014. When some sweet, beautiful, adonis of a human being leaked the Deadpool test footage online. You know the one I mean.

That’s right. And try as they might to get it off the internet (and oh, they did try.) no one seemed to be able to stop it – this awesome two minute long piece of everything fans have been begging for. So Blur Studio did what anyone would do in that situation – they said “fuckit.” and released this footage officially.

And thus, from there, the high demand, the excitement and the now renewed desire of the fans became too much to ignore, and little more than a month later it was announced that Deadpool was officially in production.

And now here we are. It’s February 2016. And Deadpool has broken a tonne of Box Office Records in North America, including 20th Century Fox opening weekend (Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith held it before then, let’s just all think about that.), R-Rated Opening Weekend, and R-Rated Opening Weekend (last held by The Matrix: Reloaded). And let me tell you: it goddamn deserves it.

It’s not just the sheer amount of time it took to even get this movie made (11 years. Most pets don’t live that long. I was twelve for Christ’s sake.) but the marketing strategies were pretty damn great.

You already knew from the go that Deadpool was not going to be like other superhero movies – it was going to be a lot cruder. From the moment they revealed the costume in a photoshoot which involved Ryan Reynolds lying on a bearskin rug to the 12 Days of Deadpool, to awesome PSA’s like this;

I can safely say Deadpool had a solid, clear marketing strategy from day one. It was so perfectly executed, and because of that, and because of the sheer perfection of the film itself – it deserves every record it broke upon release.

And hey, if you want to know exactly how awesome the film is, my lovely friend wrote a pretty sick review here.

Fare thee well,

Fran

(All images were taken from the official Deadpool Facebook Page!)

Playlist Book Tag

What happens when our resident vlogger The Little Librarian plays Book Tag ? Find out below!

‘Deadpool Vs. Gambit’ Comic Book Series Announced

As Wade Wilson continues to dominate the Silver screen, X-Men mainstay Remy LeBeau looks to rain on his comic-book parade as Marvel announces Deadpool Vs. Gambit comic book mini-series coming this Summer.

The news was revealed at the recent ComicsPRO comic book submit explaining that the five-issue series will explore Deadpool and Gambits “secret, shared history”, with ComicBook.com elaborating that the two conmen worked together “just long enough to stab each other in the back.“

Celebrated She-Hulk artist Kevin Wada will bring his talent to the covers with Danilo Beyruth providing the artwork across the pages. Thunderbolt writers Ben Acker and Ben Blacker will script the story as the Merc-with-the-Mouth takes on the Cajun-sensation when the first issue debuts this June.

Marvel looks to capitalise on 20th Century Fox’s record breaking success with Deadpool’s solo movie and are surely hoping that Channing Tatum’s Gambit film will do the same when it is released in 2017. With Deadpool 2 having already been green-light however, expect more R-Rated 4th-wall breaking shenanigans to come.

For all your Comic-Book-Showdown-News, stick with @mitch_rated only on Skatronixxx

February Recommendations : Not Another Love Story

It’s time for this months recommendations from our resident vlogger ‘The Little Librarian’, find out what everyone should be reading this month!

Ryan Reynolds talks about script for ‘Deadpool 2’

So Ryan Reynolds isn’t hanging around by the sounds of it with getting the Deadpool sequel ball rolling he was doing a podcast with Chris Hewitt from Empire and was quoted as saying “We are on a script, we are well into a script” this of course is music to my ears.

It has so far been a box office success taking what the last Wolverine did in its entire run in one weekend and it’s not hard to see why the film was amazing from start to finish. One person who seems to be eager to get in on the action is Avatar actor Stephen Lang I won’t spoil who he wants to play for the people who have yet to see the film(Just make sure you stay for the end credits). But below is a picture of Lang pulling a strong pose to show he is ready via his Instagram.

Reynolds also spoke about the issues he had with pulling the current Deadpool film through production nightmares he said the following.

We has endless conversations about other X-men. Taskmaster was in the script originally, too expensive. We had versions where we wanted Hugh Jackman in there, we wanted all kinds of cameos from different people, but it just becomes a big mess at the studio.

We went through such hell developing the script and which X-men we could keep and which we couldn’t and it just turned into a nightmare. The studio would just say ‘too expensive, too expensive to expensive’ to everyone. So we were like ‘Well what about Negasonic Tennage Warhead’ and they said ‘Negasonic what?’

Seeing as how well the first movie has already done I can’t see there being the same problem with the sequel (Fingers crossed). You can listen to the podcast in its entirety on the following link https://soundcloud.com/empiremagazine/deadpool-spoiler-special-with-ryan-reynolds (Be warned if you have not seen the film yet I would not give this a listen as they talk about the film in its entirety)

‘Wolverine 3’ Gets An R-Rating

It seems that the Deadpool-effect is already taking hold at 20th Century Fox with sources out of the recent companies Toy Fair presentation reporting that the next Wolverine film with be R-Rated.

The image below (uploaded on imgur by RayChaos) shows a pamphlet that has been claimed to have been handed out at the event, revealing the companies projected rating for Wolverine 3.

Fans of the berserker may question how it has taken this long for Hugh Jackmans violent Logan to get a bloody adaption. This is in no doubt a reaction to the success of Ryan Reynolds Merc-With-A-Mouth, whose R-Rated exploits has seen Director Tim Miller‘s work surpassed Fifty Shades of Grey’s 85.2 Million on Presidents Weekend and the month of February with a cool $135 Million.
The Reynolds lead film also has a stranglehold on the crown as the biggest opening ever for a R-Rated Movie beating out Matrix Reloaded’s $91.8 Million debut.

The Wolverine Director James Mangold will return to direct the third film which Jackman revealed last year will explore the father/son relationship between Logan and Professor Xavier who will once again be portrayed by a returning Patrick Stewart.

Wolverine 3 is slated to hit theatres March 3, 2017 with production staring on the project this April.

For all your Hack-And-Slash-R-Rated-Action-News, stick with @mitch_rated only on Skatronixxx

Book Series You Should Read This Year

It’s 2016 and chances are if you have a Goodreads account, you’ve set up your Goodreads Reading Challenge 2016.

In response to this, I thought it’d be good to share with all of you some series I have read/am reading that I think you should all add to your shelves – Goodreads and real life.

Chaos Walking  – Patrick Ness

The Chaos Walking series is a trilogy by Patrick Ness – I recently finished and wrote a review on the second book The Ask and The Answer, and I’ve also reviewed the first, The Knife of Never Letting Go, and only three days ago did I finally complete the concluding novel, Monsters of Men. 

This series is unspeakably awesome. The premise centres around a boy named Todd who’s growing up in a town where everyone can hear each others thoughts – it’s called The Noise, and it is a disease that was passed to the humans from the planet which made everyone able to hear each others thoughts – and wiped out all of the woman.

Then everything changes when Todd finds a spot where there is no Noise, and a girl standing in the midst of it.

This series is so absolutely stunning. It’s raw, it’s incredibly written and everything from the characters to the world building are incredible. The ending is so fucking gut wrenching and I damn near threw my book across a packed tube (justifiable.) and I’m just so. Torn up. You know when your life just feels better having read a series? This is one of those for me.

Read it, love it, sob a lot and get back to me.

The Young Elites – Marie Lu

The Young Elites is a recent series, with it’s second book The Rose Society only coming out recently. This story follows a young woman from an abusive home who has been marked by a blood disease that left her with a scar where her eye should be – and with incredible supernatural abilities.

This is one of the darkest books I’ve ever read – riddled with abuse, graphic violence and intense fight scenes, it is constantly gripping and never boring. It’s also got an incredible cast of characters, diverse and most with their own Elite powers.

On top of that, the main character is dark – she isn’t a poor fragile songbird who finds these beautiful powers – she’s a tragic, angry person with a fury in her and dark, destructive powers.

The first book left me desperate for more – it broke my heart in so many ways, with such a gut-wrenching and unexpected ending. I was in bits.

I’ve also heard very good things about Marie Lu’s other trilogy, the Legend trilogy – so that’s next on my series to read list.

Shades of Magic – Victoria Schwab 

There isn’t much I can say about the Shades of Magic series other than the fact that the first book, A Darker Shade of Magic is probably one of my favourite books of all time ever. This isn’t an exaggeration or hyperbolic -I fell hard for this magical world.

My full review of A Darker Shade of Magic can be found earlier in my blog so you get the full scale, but in short;

Kell is the last of his kind, a blood magician, who can travel through universes, between the four versions of London in existence.

However, when an artifact from the abandoned Black London makes its way into Kell’s life, it’s up to him to take it back – which can be difficult when a thief has decided to join you for the ride.

I can’t emphasise enough how much I loved A Darker Shade of Magic – it left me yearning for so much more, then low and be-damn-hold, A Gathering of Shadows will be coming out February 23rd this year. I’m so excited I can barely contain it – getting to go back to this incredible world, with such inventive, diverse characters? That’s a genuine gift.

(Oh also it is GETTING A TV SERIES!!! And Victoria is writing the pilot – follow her on Twitter for more updates! And also because she’s super nice.)

So, there we go – three series I could not recommend more highly to you in 2016. I’ll also sneakily drop in here that you should for sure be reading Saga because God knows what kind of hell you’re living in without this graphic novel in your life.

Let me know if you’ve read any of these – or, let me know what you’re reading! I’m always looking for new books to splurge on.

Fare thee well,

Fran

Deadpool Review

Much has been made of Deadpool actor, Ryan Reynolds, quest to bring the title hero to the big screen after the characters mishandled debut in Wolverine Origins (2009).

The actors passion however should not be under-sold as it this aspect that shines throughout Deadpools glorious return to the big screen.

Reynolds of course plays the Merc-With-A-Mouth Wade Wilson, a lippy thug-for-hire who finds himself facing certain death after finding out he has terminal cancer. The timing couldn’t be worst given that the rogue has found love in the form of Morena Baccarin’s Vanessa, a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold and the action flicks self proclaimed “hot chick.”

Wilson soon finds himself going to extreme lengths to cure his ailment leading to our hero unlocking his latent mutant abilities of healing (like X-Men favourite Wolverine) at the expense of Wilson pretty little mug.

Factor in that the bad guy kidnaps his girl after our hero torches villain Ajax’s (Ed Skerin) lab, and Deadpool is out for revenge.

Reynolds who is probably best known for his comedic roles is on fire, mixing in his own sardonic delivery with the quick witted and cult laden retorts that Deadpool is known for. The 4th wall break from the comic books is also present and used to great effect as the story balances classic superhero origin story and kick-ass action.

Supporting appearances from X-Men Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) are a welcome palette cleanser to hyperbolic Wilson, with both making great comedic “straight men“. The scene in which Deadpool literally breaks his limbs trying to beat up Colossus had my fellow cinema goers and myself rolling in the aisle.

If Deadpool has a weakness it would be its over zealous in-jokes with regards to the characters comic-book past. The references will have knowing fans geeking-out while causal viewers might find certain jokes fall flat. But there are enough dirty jokes and movie references peppered in to keep all invested in Wilson fight for revenge.

Overall Deadpool makes up for the beloved Merc’s dire debut, which is referenced, gagged and easter egged on more than one occasion. Tim Miller’s film is not only a worthy addition to the ever expanding X-Men universe but an exciting entry into the weird world of Wade Wilson. Roll on Deadpool 2.

Now … where did I park my Unicorn?

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