June 2012 - Page 2 of 2

Yzabel / June 21, 2012

Review: Anna Dressed In Blood

My rating: [rating=4]

3.5 to 4 stars to this book. I decided on 4 on the end, because I really had a good time reading it, in spite of those of its aspects I found annoying.

The story kept me on the edge of my seat, and I always wanted to know more—about where it was going, what would happen to the characters—which is one of the more important things I ask from a book. I didn’t care much for Cas at first, with his too-cool-guy spiel in his new school, but after a while, his point of view grew on me, and I felt at ease with him. Carmel, too, was a nice surprise: a “queen bee” who isn’t so stupid and shallow as I feared at first, and who gives a useful hand. Finally, Anna was a very intriguing protagonist, appearing as both terrible and beautiful; more than once I felt the desire to actually draw her, something that seldom happens to me. The revelations about her story were awful because of their cruelty, and made her quite the tragis character.

However,I felt that she was weaker in the second part of the book, as the change in her kicked in, and this was too bad. Also, I felt very frustrated when the real antagonist popped in: I would have wanted to know so much more about that part, what led to it, why, how it had happened. I really hope this will be addressed in book #2, because it was intense and terrifying (what he did to Cas seriously freaked me out), and unexpected, too… but there weren’t enough details about the motives behind it.

Yzabel / June 20, 2012

Review: A Demon Made Me Do It

A Demon Made Me Do It by Penelope King

My rating: [rating=3]

(Book read and reviewed for {Read It & Reap 55} in the Shut Up And Read group.)

Told from the points of view of both Liora and Lucky, the story deals with a girl who’s human during the day, and half-demon at night. While they share the same body (and are basically the same soul, only cut in two), Liora doesn’t know what Lucky does, and conversely. Every day seems to be the same old drill for Liora: going to school to follow classes she knows by heart and isn’t interested in, while being labelled the school freak and not having any real friend to speak of. Every night also seems to be the same for Lucky: a trip to the Demon world, minor demons to hunt, humans to punish for their deeds. Until a new boy, Kieron, enrolls in Liora’s school.

I was a little afraid that the tone of the book would be too reminiscent of your typical teen angst, especially in the chapters focusing on Liora (who seemingly likes to wallow in all the bad sides of her life, without enjoying the good moments); and the constant rejecting of fault on each other got tiring after a while, even though it was also understandable, given their circumstances. At times, it deterred me from the pleasure of reading. Fortunately, the first chapters still managed to get me in fairly easily. The world inhabited by the demons is interesting, nicely described, and its layers and social links make it clear that Liora/Lucky’s situation is even trickier than the pitch promised at first.

Kieron’s first appearance didn’t do much for me. Typical good-looking boy with dazzling smile and eyes, with all the popular girls flitting around him like flies, but the only one to really catch his interest is unpopular Liora (who’s actually a hottie, but doesn’t want to believe it; thanks Satan Lucky is here to be cool, sassy, and make her wear sexy clothes and make-up). Granted, the reason why gets revealed later on; at first, it gave way to quite a little bit of eye-rolling. I enjoyed reading about Lucky more than about Liora, though the latter got better in the end; I guess Lucky is just more my type of character. As for Kieron… I still can’t decide if I disliked him or if he was at least mildly bearable. The character I liked the most, all in all, was Bones; there’s no particular reason, in fact, I just liked his way of behaving and his personality—straightforward incubus, but also very loyal to his friends.

It was an enjoyable read, but it could’ve been better, notably in terms of pacing. The way the point of view is carried between Lucky and Liora sometimes leaves certain things in the dark in an odd way, or switches at moments that seemed weird to me. The ending was a little abrupt, compared to the relative ‘speed’ of the rest of the book. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed that ending and the lesson it carried. The themes of ‘revenge’ and ‘how revenge can ruin your life’, are something I am deeply interested in. I think that Lucky made the right choice, and that it was quite a positive ending.The book ends on some kind of closure, yet some things are still not resolved, such as the other crimes of the Amazèa, some elements about Kieron’s employment, or whether Liora and Lucky can become one again, and how; and so, in spite of its flaws, I still want to read the next installment.

Yzabel / June 16, 2012

Review: Silver Knight

Silver Knight by Caron Rider

My rating: [rating=3]

[I got the ebook version to review through a We ♥ YA Books ARR.]

Silver Knight is a book I enjoyed reading, but that left me confused at times.

First, I must say that I liked the overall plot. It seemed intriguing at first—’a girl realizing that the priest in a certain YouTube video is actually a man she met in a former life—and it kept on being so. What could have been easily solved, and apparently is, also raises more questions and issues. Is the problem addressed in the video solved at the end of the book? Not so much, and it clearly points at a sequel and at a more complex story. I’m sure I’m not the only one who found some elements pretty fishy.

The characters I found appealing. Diana, among others, struck me as a strong enough persona, thanks to her decisions and actions in the present timeline, as well as to what was shown of her in her past lives, that nicely echo elements from the main plotline. Besides, I’ve always had a sweet spot for different readings of historical events (same with historical characters), and the stories the author conveyed here were interesting: the retelling of Helen’s fate, Alexander’s real identity (I didn’t need much to guess it, but it was still nice to read about), what happened in Pompeii… Although some might say those were contrived, I nevertheless thought them told originally enough.

However, those past lives and events were also what left me confused: I’d say there were just a little too many of them, all the more so that they were interspersed with other characters’ points of view. While those were interesting, they contributed to making the main plot difficult to follow at times, as well as having it appear a little weak (in that if you remove the parts about the past lives, there isn’t that much left, come to think of it). I understand that the ‘past lives aspect’ is an important part of the novel’s pitch, and that it’s important to have it in; it just seems to me that it was too much to chew on all at once, and that some of it might have been better kept off until the second installment.

That said, it was a good story, and I will probably read the sequel.

Yzabel / June 15, 2012

Review: The Feminine Mystique

As I mentioned in another post, I don’t have that much time to write these days. However, since I still want to add some content to this blog, I’m going to do it all the same, by posting a few of the book reviews I’ve written in the past weeks. Let’s start with:

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

My rating: [rating=3]

This book was quite interesting, in that it allowed me to get a closer look at feminism in a period and in a country I’m currently studying about for an exam. It helped me delve deeper into something I thought I knew, yet didn’t know that much. Now I understand much better how and why it must have had quite an impact at the time of its first publication. I have experienced myself some of the feelings the author describes—not as a mother and housewife (which I am not), but because there was a time when I was searching for something more than get-married-and-settle-in-the-suburb, too, and felt like there was much more to my life than what I had at the time. In that regard, it pretty much hit home as far as I’m concerned, regarding the memories I have of that bygone period of my life.

Somehow, I even wonder if we’re so far from the issue. Even very recently, I was told “why don’t you find yourself a man?”, as if this would be the solution to everything. Would it, really?

I didn’t like it “more than that”, though, for the reason that it was a somehow tedious read in our era. The author seems to drag a little too much on some aspects, repeating them several times—I get it that she wanted to drive her point home, and I don’t doubt that it was needed at the time, but it made it hard for me to focus at some point, feeling that this or that section wouldn’t bring me more.

Yzabel / June 13, 2012

Toying with themes

Because I was so fed up with revising all day long…

… I spent a couple of hours tonight toying with themes, to try and find something new for this blog. After all, the former theme dated back to 2005 or so; it was high time for a change, wasn’t it?

I still don’t know if I’ll go with the present one in the end, or if I’ll work on something else. I’m definitely going to add a few more things to the banner. But this will happen later. I still have much work to do in terms of school work tomorrow.

Yzabel / June 11, 2012

Book reviews: ARRs and ARCs

Part of the reasons why I’m very busy this year is that I’ve been trying to read more—I’ve always been an avid reader, but having many projects and many centers of interest make it so that I only have a little time to devote to each of those. And reading is what tends to be put on the back burner, since it’s one of my least ‘productive’ activities. (By ‘productives’, I mean ‘an activity that leaves me with a finished product, such as a piece of drawing, a chapter, a short story, etc.’ Of course reading will always be more productive to me intellectually than, say, watching TV.)

Putting aside required readings, such as those that’d be useful for my job or for my studies—I’m an eternal student, really—I’ve also been taking part from time to time in what’s usually called ARRs (Author Requested Readings) and ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies). Both are in a way similar, being offered by authors and publishers. The difference, as far as I’ve understood, is that ARCs are the step right before official publishing—a sort of last proof-reading—so of course, they’re not always perfect in terms of typos. ARRs are requested by their authors, for instance, indie authors going through self-publishing (which doesn’t mean that such novels are bad just because they’re indie, of course).

So far, I’ve only done that through a couple of groups on Goodreads, but this experience was interesting, and I may do it again elsewhere if the opportunity strikes. I’ll also post here the few reviews I wrote about such books. Some were pleasant reads; others were less interesting. I tried to remain as objective as possible when writing my critiques.

Yzabel / June 9, 2012

Revival?

It’s been a while, really.

Due to various circumstances, including several writing & drawing projects as well as my studies and a couple of competiting exams, I’ve sorely neglected this blog, and I regret it; I’ve always kept fond memories of it, and I wouldn’t like it to remain dead.

I should’ve worked on it, and upgraded it, much sooner. I got delayed (and discouraged) for a long time because of heavy problems with the database, and didn’t dare to tackle those, in fear of losing my posts and comments here. So I slowly worked on the blog now and then, saving it page by page, and finally took the plunge tonight. Fortunately, I didn’t seem to lose anything in the process, not as far as the English version is concerned. Unfortunately, my webhost doesn’t support the latest WordPress version (yet), and I have no idea where the French version of the Y Logs has gone. It probably got lost somewhere in King Oblivion’s dark domains a long time ago, because I couldn’t find it even before upgrading. I guess it’s going to remain there. I certainly don’t feel up to translating all the existing posts again (some of which are pretty much outdated and not worth it anyway). For the time being, the Y Logs will be in English only.

Right now, I don’t have much time either to properly post every day again—there’s another exam coming up in less than 10 days—but I’ve got a few plans for the blog, that I hope to work on during the summer. I’d like to use it to post book reviews, among other things. We’ll see.In any case, I’ll do my best to be active here again.