Books Archives - Page 63 of 71

Yzabel / April 19, 2013

Review: Echo

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

A young adult science fiction adventure novel, this story features a strong, but flawed heroine and complex world building, along with themes of friendship, loss, faith, and tolerance–and the end of the world. With the countdown clock showing 10 days until the end of their planet, everyone has been notified and assigned a duty–but the problem is no one knows for sure how everything will end. Energy-hungry Mages are the most likely culprit, traveling toward a single location from every corner of the continent. Fueled by the two suns, each Mage holds the power of an element: air, earth, fire, metal, water, or ether. They harness their powers to draw energy from the most readily available resource: humans. Ashara has been assigned to the Ethereal task group, made up of human ether manipulators and directed by Loken, a young man with whom she has a complicated past. Loken and Ashara bond over a common goal: to stop the Mages from occupying their home and gaining more energy than they can contain. But soon, they begin to suspect that the future of the world may depend on something unexpected–Ashara’s death.

Review:

(Book provided by the author through ARR #88 in the We ♥ YA Books! group, in exchange for an honest review.)

What attracted me to Echo was the world it depicted—a world on the brink of destruction, more o nthe science-fiction than really dystopian side, with paranormal powers to boot. I liked this world the author wove through her story: close to ours in many aspects, yet with powers based on elements, each practitioner being able to perform feats based on his/her elements (people working with Air can move very fast, those with the power of Metal can bend, extend and control anything containing metal, and so on).

The concept of rewinding time, too, was a nice add-on: while it might seem at first sight that it made things too easy, it has its drawbacks, and it quickly becomes clear that it can’t be used as a good method to prevent the end of the world, only to delay it.

I’m still unsure about what to think of Ashara. On the one hand, she often came as whiny, as boasting “I want to save the world” only to run away at the first sight of real danger; on the other hand, considering how she was brought to the Ethereal task force with only ten days to learn to master powers she never knew she had, I don’t think I could blame her for being quite overwhelmed. Other characters, such as Rey or Krin, were more likeable, at least to me. And there was no love triangle. Things between Ashara and Loken were sometimes awkward, sure, but at least their respective relationships were otherwise clearly defined. (I’m no fan of love triangles for the sake of love triangles, if this makes sense; and too often, the YA genre revolves around such devices, as if they had become mandatory. So, kudos to the author, who wisely chose to avoid that.)

What I liked less in this book:
1) There are only 10 days left, but I didn’t really feel a sense of urgency until the last chapters. Also, Ashara’s progress seemed to go to fast past some point, especially if we consider the “quiet” circumstances she was in for most of the story (no spoiling here, but she wasn’t so often on the field, nor in actual training).
2) A few points in the story would have deserved more of an explanation, notably the part about Ashara’s father. I kind of got it, but… something was still lacking in my opinion.
3) The Elders’ decision about Ashara. Somehow, I’d have expected them to be more clever about that whole situation.
4) The temporary shift in points of view near the end, when all the other chapters were from Ashara’s. It would’ve worked better if the story had been told in the third person, and if the technique had been used from the start.

Because of those things that tended to annoy me, I’m giving “only” 3 stars to this book. Nevertheless, it remained an enjoyable read, written in a pleasant style, and I enjoyed the world built here by the author.

Yzabel / April 4, 2013

Review: What’s Left of Me

What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

I should not exist. But I do.

Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t . . .

For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable-hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet . . . for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything.

Review:

3.5 stars more than 3, but I’m not sure if I’d wish to go to 4. I’ll have to think about it.

On the plus side, the narrative is quite unique, in that we see things from Eva’s point of view—Eca, who’s the “recessive” soul, the one who should have vanished long ago, and is all but an onlooker, unable to move, act or even simply speak physically. While this could’ve lent to a boring way of relating events one after the other, Kat Zhang manages to give her a voice that makes her very present, very involved; Eva refers to things such as “our hands, our eyes” to speak of Addie and herself, and her personality as well as how she lived through events quickly pulled me into the story.

I liked the relationship between the two “sisters/souls”, how they have different personalities, happen to fight, then make up, always having to pretend that they’re one person only, but doing their best to live together. Eva refuses to fade, and Addie clearly refuses to let her fade as well, wanting her by her side no matter what, no matter the risks. Perhaps Addie came off as a more egotistic person, and wasn’t always very likeable; on the other hand, this isn’t so surprising.

Also, the hybrids are an interesting concept, and I think the reader is led quite subtly to learn to recognize which persona is in control: after a while, I felt I didn’t even need Eva’s words to guess who she was looking at or speaking to.

On the downside, and here’s one of the reasons why I’m not giving this book a better mark, the dystopian/alternate history depicted in “What’s Left of Me” wasn’t too clearly drawn in my opinion. I couldn’t sense strong world-building behind it, and I hope that the next book will remedy to that. For instance, we can guess why being a hybrid might be bad (for instance, souls always competing with each other for control of the body, leading to madness) but all the examples of hybrids we’re shown throughout the story are, all in all, quite rational and balanced people, who manage to get along with their other half. Maybe things would’ve been more convincing if there had been a couple of ‘baddies’ thrown in, or anything else, actually, that would’ve shaken off the underlying, nagging feeling of “the hybrids aren’t bad, it’s just the government lying, because this is a dystopian world, period.”

The second reason is that there was a bit of a slump in the middle of the book. There was a sense of danger, of risk, of hidden truths, of secrets, but it wasn’t pushed far enough in my opinion, and so things at the point seemed a little dull. The pace picked up again afterwards, though.

I’ll probably pick the second book, because I still want to know more. I hope that we’ll get to learn more about why all the lies, and that the characters will be as intriguing as they’re in this first installment.

Yzabel / March 22, 2013

Review: Something Strange and Deadly

Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

There’s something strange and deadly loose in Philadelphia…

Eleanor Fitt has a lot to worry about.
Her brother has gone missing, her family has fallen on hard times, and her mother is determined to marry her off to any rich young man who walks by. But this is nothing compared to what she’s just read in the newspaper:
The Dead are rising in Philadelphia.
And then, in a frightening attack, a zombie delivers a letter to Eleanor… from her brother.

Review:

Balancing between 3 and 4 stars here.

I found the book fast-paced enough to my liking, as well as convincing in terms of mores: Elanor’s mother is concerned about keeping up appearances, about her daughter snagging off a rich husband to save the family from ruin… all things that fit, in my opinion, with matters related to societies with a strong bent on social classes. The book reads fast, too, and I regularly wanted to pick it up again. Not to mention that necromancy is one of those kinds of magic that I always enjoy reading about.

On the other hand, and while I consider myself a pretty clueless reader whose disbelief is easily suspended, I found that too many things were predictable early in the story. Well-tied together, granted, but predictable, to the point that sometimes I just wanted to tell the character what an idiot she was for not understanding the clues left everywhere. Also, this book falls in my own personal catgegory of “how is it steampunk?”. Steampunk is easy to render in illustrations, but not so much in words, and slapping off a few contraptions, goggles and some engine in an exhibition isn’t enough for me to justify the label. This may be merely a personal pet peeve, but I still believe that too many authors, publishers and readers don’t understand what exactly lies behind “steampunk”. It’s much more complex than that.

However, I’ll probably still pick the next installment. Eleanor as a character wasn’t of the wimpy kind, showed willpower and abilities to think and act for herself, and to uphold her decisions, no matter the outcome. The ending left me wanting to know what’s going to happen next.

Yzabel / March 19, 2013

Review: Dearly, Departed

Dearly, Departed: A Zombie Novel by Lia Habel

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

CAN A PROPER YOUNG VICTORIAN LADY FIND TRUE LOVE IN THE ARMS OF A DASHING ZOMBIE?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the mores of an antique era. Sixteen-year-old Nora Dearly is far more interested in her country’s political unrest than in silly debutante balls. But the death of her beloved parents leaves Nora at the mercy of a social-climbing aunt who plans to marry off her niece for money. To Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses. Now she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting a fatal virus that raises the dead. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and thoroughly deceased. But like the rest of his special undead unit, Bram has been enabled by luck and modern science to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

Review:

This is one of those books I’m having a hard time rating.

On the plus side:
– Zombies. A couple of years ago, I wasn’t really interested in those, but other stories I read since then made this theme more interesting. Here, I liked that some of them were given a chance, and were able to prove that they could still remain “humane” in many ways (sometimes even more than some of the living).
– Girls take matters into hands. Not always from the beginning, but they quickly learn to. Nora could’ve been much more of a crybaby, given her circumstances, yet she didn’t let herself sink. Pamela, too, grew to be more likeable. And Chas. How I loved spunky, mouth-running Chas.
– World-building. Granted, if we dig deeper into it, its bases are probably flawed, but no more than those of a lot of other dystopian/sci-fi stories. I’d say they’re more believale than in, say, the Hunger Games, because the rest of the world is at least mentioned.
– There’s an airship. ‘Nuff said. A certain scene involving it and a church holds a special value to me, due to personal reasons.
– Quirky and crazy engineers, whose names I quite liked, by the way.
– Neo-victorian society, with reasons for customs to revert to those of what was perceived as a “Golden Age”—and said customs indeed correspond the Victorian ones (courtship, dress code, and a lot of tiny details too).
– There’s a parasol involved in killing a zombie.
– Actually, parasols come with different lights to indicate the status of a lady: married, unmarried… and those who prefer women to men, too. Now that’s one of those tiny little ideas I like.

On the minus side:
– Once again, the “steampunk” label is applied to a world that in my opinion is not so much steampunk in the end. Sure, they use coal, but reconciliating this with more modern technology (the local equivalent of iPads, holograms, data chips…) was a little hard. Too often I feel that books get labelled as “steampunk” because it’s a fad, and this is getting annoying.
– The villains felt too cartoonesque at times.
– Some of the point of views weren’t so useful. I don’t mind juggling five POVs—I can juggle 20 if they’re properly written. But at least two of them weren’t justified. I’m not sure about the third one, since it also gives us on what’s happening meanwhile, in the city. Also, at some point the POVs tended to become hard to distinguish from each other. I’d be reading Pamela’s, and then suddenly I wouldn’t know anymore whose “voice” it was, if it was Pam’s or Nora’s.
– Not enough of New London to my taste.

Probably a 3.5 stars on my scale, but I’m not sure I should up it to 4. So 3 it’ll be for the time being. I will probably pick up the next volume, though.

Yzabel / February 6, 2013

Review: The Timekeeper’s Son

The Timekeeper’s Son by Mike E. Miller

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

What would you do if you could start your life over again? What if you didn’t have a choice?

That’s what happens to Andy Meyers. He has all the normal trappings of life: a beautiful wife, a nice house, and a good job. But all that vanishes when he wakes to find himself reliving his own childhood. He is suddenly nine-years-old again, and he is poised to reenact a terrible chain of events that altered his life forever.

But that’s just the beginning. Things get even more complicated when Andy discovers an impossible note. Someone knows he has come back. Someone who doesn’t want him to change anything. And they will stop at nothing to keep him from it.

As Andy starts to unravel his own past, he begins to find that things are much different than he ever imagined. His family has a secret. A secret so big that it could change everything.

Review:

(Book provided by the author through ARR #590 in the Making Connections group, in exchange for an honest review.)

Overall an interesting book, along the idea of “what would you do if you could go back to the past and change something.” It avoided falling into a lot of clichés I expect of such a genre (for instance, “let’s go back in 1938 and kill Hitler”), while also addressing the matter of time paradox, in that, of course, whatever gets changed in the past will affect the future, and so the ‘old’ life the character would like to go back to wouldn’t exist anymore, not per se, at least.

The backdrop provided, that of the Timekeepers’ organization, was interesting, and I liked the trigger to time-travel that was revealed later on in the book. It was shocking, yet also logical in a way.

I was less thrilled at the second part of the book, though. I found the Timekeepers to be perhaps a little too… naive?… in their dealings. As if they should’ve been able to expect and do more, but didn’t. Instead, Andy was the one who seemed to understand the most, when he was actually the one who should’ve been the most clueless. (Granted, he was the main character, and a main character who doesn’t *do* anything and only lets things happen would be boring. It’s just the behaviour of other characters that seemed somewhat contradictory to me.)

No matter what, I do think there’s potential to the world created here. I would probably be interested in reading the next installment, especially if it were to reveal more about the Timekeepers and how they work exactly.

Yzabel / February 4, 2013

Review: Kindling the Moon

Kindling the Moon by Jenn Bennett

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Meet Arcadia Bell: bartender, renegade magician, fugitive from the law. . . .

Being the spawn of two infamous occultists (and alleged murderers) isn’t easy, but freewheeling magician Arcadia “Cady” Bell knows how to make the best of a crummy situation. After hiding out for seven years, she’s carved an incognito niche for herself slinging drinks at the demon-friendly Tambuku Tiki Lounge.

But she receives an ultimatum when unexpected surveillance footage of her notorious parents surfaces: either prove their innocence or surrender herself. Unfortunately, the only witness to the crimes was an elusive Æthyric demon, and Cady has no idea how to find it. She teams up with Lon Butler, an enigmatic demonologist with a special talent for sexual spells and an arcane library of priceless stolen grimoires. Their research soon escalates into a storm of conflict involving missing police evidence, the decadent Hellfire Club, a ruthless bounty hunter, and a powerful occult society that operates way outside the law. If Cady can’t clear her family name soon, she’ll be forced to sacrifice her own life . . . and no amount of running will save her this time.

Review:

More like 2.5 stars, but I’m upping it to 3, because I feel there’s potential in the world developed here.

My main beef with this book is that the heroine, Arcadia, appears as strong and independent, but when taking a closer look, doesn’t exactly *do* that much by herself: sure, she takes the matter into her own hands and enlists help to solve it, but once this is done, in my opinion, said help does more than her. Also, for someone who’s supposed to be in hiding because of her serial killer parents, and does have quite recognizable features (=her halo—not a spoiler, we learn that in chapter 1), I didn’t find her particularly stealth-savvy, nor in a hurry either. She’s supposed to have only two weeks to solve her problem, yet there were several chapters in which I couldn’t feel any urgency, and wanted to tell the characters “uh, guys, the clock’s ticking.” Finally, I found the romance bit a little too present; it may have been better to develop it more slowly, over the course of two books, maybe.

On the other hand, I liked the supernatural world developed by the author, with different categories of ‘demons’ (not all necessarily ‘bad’, but more on the side of ‘spirits’, in fact), and how some of them mixed with humans, as beings trapped into human bodies. The bar was a cool place, too, and I hope that it’s not going to be dropped in the next books. Some of the characters I enjoyed a lot: Lon, for starters, had unexpected sides, his having a son and loving him fiercely not being the least. As for hyperactive Jupe, he was just so lovable from the start, and not the piece of heavy baggage such a ward may be seen as in a lot of novels.

I’m still not sure I’ll read the next book in the series, because although I enjoyed this one, I also expected more of it, and therefore was a bit disappointed. But then, who knows, I might.

Yzabel / January 29, 2013

Review: The Greyfriar

The Greyfriar by Clay Griffith

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Vampire predators run wild in this exciting steampunk adventure, the first in an alternate history trilogy that is already attracting attention. In 1870, monsters rise up and conquer the northern lands, As great cities are swallowed up by carnage and disease, landowners and other elite flee south to escape their blood-thirsty wrath.

One hundred fifty years later, the great divide still exists; fangs on one side of the border, worried defenders on the other. This fragile equilibrium is threatened, then crumbles after a single young princess becomes almost hopelessly lost in the hostile territory. At first, she has only one defender—a mysterious Greyfriar who roams freely in dangerous vampire regions.

Review:

I found it hard at first to get into the story, because I couldn’t properly wrap my mind about the geography and politics of the world described in this book—it’s nothing complicated, though, so I guess it was just me, probably reading too late at night as usual, in a language that remains not my own. The problem didn’t last for long anyway, and then I got sucked in.

I want to mention that for once, too, the label ‘steampunk’ is better applied than it usually is to a lot of novels lumped in this genre. I love the steampunk aesthetics, I love in in art and clothing, but I find that too often, an author will slap a few cogs and a dirigible and call it ‘steampunk’. The keyword being ‘steam’. Here, though, we are given a world where such technology is the norm; while it’s not the core of the story, it’s still present enough to be felt throughout the novel.

The vampires are ruthless and inhuman, yet cunning in their own ways. Having the point of view of both humans and vampires throughout the narrative allows the reader to see how each species perceive each other like nothing more than animals, especially since the vampires don’t seem to care about fine clothing, architecture, arts, poetry, and so on, thus making them ‘inferior’ in the eyes of humans. I liked that take, because if we reverse it, it’s also logical: why would immortal creatures bother with the very means through which the short-lived humans strive to make themselves ‘immortal’?

The real identity of the mysterious Greyfriar was easy enough to guess, but that was alright, because the author didn’t try to actually hide it from the reader (if he had tried to do so, on the other hand, it would have fallen flat, for sure). For me, it actually tied quite well with the use of certain clichés that, in retrospect, also make a lot of sense. Greyfriar: a mysterious man who never shows his face and hides his eyes behind smoked glasses; fights like a hero of legend; fights ‘the good fight’, alone, in dangerous territories, isolated from all other humans. Greyfriar was from the beginning an image, a symbol, and I found the reason behind that image somewhat touching, even.

One thing I regularly had problems with, though, was the shift in points of view. It switches between characters several times in a same chapter, sometimes even from one paragraph to the other, yet it’s not an exact omniscient third person POV either. This tends to make me lose focus, and wonder “Wait, what? It was about Flay, and now we’re in Cesare’s thoughts? Huh?”

This put aside, I enjoyed the story, and the gritty side there was to it.

Yzabel / January 19, 2013

Cover project: Was

This isn’t exactly a true “cover reveal”, as in I’m not doing it to announce an upcoming book (well, not so soon, at any rate). But I’ve had a lot of fun and excitement working on a cover project for the first part of my story “Was”, and of course I’m eager to share it.

Paris, February 1989. With the help of his deadly minion, the cunning Necromancer Louis Valdemar is well on his way to awake dark forces no human being should ever play with. Abiding by treaties held up for centuries, the Anima Mundi, an organisation of mages, sends a team of hunters to put an end to this madness, and prevent the French capital from being destroyed.

Bristol, May 2008. A-level student Louisa Keynes wakes up in a white hospital room, after a car crash that left her in a coma for ten months, only to find out that everything has changed, that her nights are now plagued by weird dreams, and that magic does exist. She has become a Technomancer, one of those mages who can bend Reality to their will using modern devices; and she’s decided to walk that path as far as she needs to in order to learn more about herself.

London, December 2009. Near the oily waters of the river Thames, sys-op Echoes and Blood Witch Ring investigate a series of gruesome murders whose victims had their souls devoured. At St Pancras railway station, Marek Van Cartier is about to wreak havoc, a sweet smile on his lips. Standing on the platform at Tottenham Court Road tube station, Lyle Karlowitz is staring at a heartless woman in a colourless world. From beyond a wall of thorns, the hand of death is about to curb the fates of thousands of people. And Louisa is riding the Northern Line, unknowingly rushing towards the encounter that will once again turn her life to shambles.

What was and what is shall now meet.

Yzabel / January 13, 2013

Review: Who is Audrey Wickersham?

Who is Audrey Wickersham? by Sara Shrieves

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

I know everything that’s happened is my fault. I try to tell myself that it’s okay, I never wanted a normal life to begin with. But then I think about who’s been hurt, and I wish that I could go back to the beginning. Back to when I was just a nobody wandering the halls of my high school, alone and unnoticed. Back to when I was completely oblivious to what killing somebody felt like.

You have to understand though, I had no choice.

Review:

(Book provided by the author through ARR #63 in the We ♥ YA Books! group, in exchange for an honest review.)

This novel was a fast and funny read as far as I’m concerned; I wouldn’t put it in my all-time favourites, but it definitely made me smile more than once, for its main character and her quirks first. Audrey’s misfortune is absolutely appaling, yet she has somewhat of a humorous way of telling about it, when her attitude could’ve been much more angst-ridden (and thus probably more difficult to stand in the long run—that may be because I’m myself the kinf of person who’s cry for five minutes, then throw in bad jokes all the time just to deflect the fear and pain). She’s also determined to take things into her own hands (even though this leads her to other mishaps), and not to let other people only try to figure out a solution.

Another thing I appreciated is the role played by her father: in a lot of novels, the protagonist’s parents often get shoved out of the way very quickly, and the teenagers left to their own devices. Here, her father is clearly part of the plot, with a fierce desire to help and protect, proving his love for his daughter by the simple fact that, for starters, he’s not rejecting her. And let’s not forget Bruce, who I absolutely loved for his own quirks.

What may or may not undo this book for a lot of readers, I think, is its ‘over the top/cheesy slash movie’ feeling—in that either you like such tropes, or you don’t. I’m usually at ease with those, especially when they’re used on purpose, which seems to be the case here; but I suppose this would deter other people from enjoying this story. There was also Kirk’s matter: the characters suffers, in my opinion, from being introduced too fast for who he is, and he would be more enjoyable if the reader could get to know him better before that.

I originally gave 3 stars to this novel, but truly, it was more like 3.5, and now that I’m writing this review, I’ve decided to up it to 4. It *was* a very entertaining story, and I like the author’s take on zombies and on how they come to be created.

Yzabel / January 11, 2013

Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

This is the extraordinary love story of Clare and Henry who met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry was thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry suffers from a rare condition where his genetic clock periodically resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. In the face of this force they can neither prevent nor control, Henry and Clare’s struggle to lead normal lives is both intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.

Review:

This book is pretty difficult to rate; I’m not even sure if I want to give it 2 stars or 3, because there are quite a few things in it I liked, and quite a few things I found hard to stand.

Like with some other books I read in the past months, I think I was expecting something else—something shorter, too: some parts I could have done without, because they didn’t bring much to the story as a whole, and felt like they were just delaying the unavoidable. Conversely, I wish the author had spent more time tackling a few problems that should have arisen regarding Henry, especially since she described other issues that came with his chrono-deficiency.

Those very issues were something I appreciated reading about, even though they made Henry hard to like in parts, because they raised interesting questions. For instance, Henry’s coldness at having to regularly steal, pick locks, mug other people, and so on; however, if one had had to do that for his/her whole life, wouldn’t s/he have ended up distancing him/herself the same way? (That, or ending up dying young because of too many scruples.) So, it didn’t make the character very likeable, but it was still a logical development for me. On the other hand, I felt like too many other problems were left aside, such as “how did he manage to hold a steady job like he did?” Also, the setting seemed a little too one-sided (middle-class people, with some annoying clichés).

I’m also shared regarding relationships in this book, more specifically Henry’s and Clare’s. While Clare’s love for him is logical enough, considering she’s known him all her life, Henry’s develops a little too fast (“it’s OK because she’s seen my future self, so I suppose it’s going to happen anyway” is just a tad bit far-fetched). And I found Clare too passive and dependent.

Truth be told, I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting from this novel. It wasn’t bad, but it left me with a lingering feeling of frustration.