December 2012 - The Y Logs

Yzabel / December 30, 2012

Review: Becoming

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

Every three years, Amber Hopkins explodes. Okay, not a blown-to-smithereens explosion, but whatever it is always hurts like hell and leaves her life a shambles. She’s already worked her way through five foster placements, and she’s doing whatever she can to avoid getting blasted into a sixth.

As her eighteenth birthday approaches and she feels the strange and powerful energy building, disaster looms. When the inevitable explosion occurs, her life gets its biggest shakeup yet. She’ll not only learn how her fellow foster and best friend, Gabriel, really feels about her, but she’ll discover that she isn’t really without family.

To top it all off, she’ll finally find out why she’s having the power surges: she isn’t entirely human.

Amber must Become, transitioning to another plane of existence and risking the loss of the most important relationship she’s ever had. Her choice will impact the future of an entire race of beings, and will pit her against an enemy that will prey upon her doubt to try and take her very life.

Kind of makes the explosions now seem like a cakewalk.

Review:

I first picked this book because of its cover and somewhat intriguing blurb, not to mention that I’m always up for discovering new authors (published or indie–there are real gems in indie too); but now I’m not so sure what to make of it. I can’t exactly say that I didn’t like it at all, only it doesn’t completely reach the “it was OK” mark for me either.

I think I would have liked it if the story had been closer to what the blurb got me to think. “Every three years, Amber Hopkins explode” would have made up for an excellent in medias res beginning, something that would have prompted the action and then the revelations in an interesting way. Unfortunately, things dragged for too long. Although the romance between Amber and Gabriel was sweet and beautiful, there was too much time wasted in everyday little things, what each character is wearing, and this goes on until the end of the book. The ‘bad guys’ really started intervening some 30 pages before the end, which came too late to my tastes–I’d have appreciated seeing more action from them, especially since the girls were told they were in danger in the human world too. I never really felt the pressure they were supposed to enact.

I found most of the characters hard to relate to, and rather cliché too. Some were just too perfect (Amber, Gabriel), some too detached (granted, it’s a cultural trait), and mostly who they are was told rather than shown (there’s actually a chapter in which the girls’ strong points and shortcomings are described in front of a crowd…). The villains looked cardboard-like, maybe because they didn’t get much screen time, so to speak, which doesn’t usually make for strong development. Add to this a definite feeling of mary-sueness: everyone gets eyes that change colours, wings, super long hair for some, powers, strength… and accepts all of this a tad bit too quickly. By that point, I was rolling my eyes, I admit.

The Estilorian society had its interesting sides, and I liked the idea of how they developed parallel to humans, offering another explanation to the ‘gods’ and ‘demi-gods’ that were said to walk the Earth in times of old. I only regret that their tribal/caste/groups organization was a little too complicated to grasp all in one go, and might have been better kept to 3 or 4 groups only. Even by the end, I couldn’t tell who was supposed to do what and why they were in that specific group. Unfortunately, some things here also added inconsistencies to the book. For instance, the Mercesti were mentioned, they seemed to be a class of their own; then they were simply those who wanted the sisters killed; and then they wanted to recruit them (so what happened to the “kill the half-bloods because our blood must remain pure”?). There were also a few instances where I wasn’t sure where the whole Estilorian society was supposed to stand: though they had many angel-like traits, what I appreciated was that they *weren’t* angels, yet later there’s mention of a sword cursed in Hell, which throws an angels/demons manichean veil over the whole thing.

As for the ending, it didn’t do for me. Too cheesy and cliché to my tastes.

Yzabel / December 28, 2012

Review: Crewel

Crewel by Gennifer Albin

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

“May Arras flourish at her touch.”

For generations, girls known as Spinsters have been called by Arras’ Manipulation Services to work the looms and control what people eat, where they live, how many children they have, and even when they die. Gifted with the unusual ability to weave time with matter, sixteen-year-old Adelice Lewys is exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to embroider the very fabric of life. But Adelice isn’t interested. Because once you become a Spinster, there’s no turning back.

Review:

From the moment I read the blurb for this book, I was deeply interested by what its world would be: a society in which special women are able to weave time and matter? That was just screaming for my attention. I was all the more interested that I’ve been a player of the pen & paper game “Secrets of the 7th Sea” for quite a few years, in which my main character is a young woman whose sorcery is based on seeing and (re)weaving strands of Fate between people; and she’s from a country where only women can use that sorcery, and as such are maintained under very strict male dominance, either father’s or husband’s (same for other women there, by the way: either kept into menial work or as classy courtesans, but still not enjoying that much freedom). You can see why “Crewel” would appeal to me even more.

Now that I’ve read it, I can say I wasn’t disappointed. The world at first reminded me of the one in Matched (with people required to find a husband/wife and marry at 18, although they still had a choice between several matches through ads/profiles, and weren’t just assigned one), but it wasn’t all the story was woven around, and soon enough I also felt that said world of Arras was more developed, and hid something else. This is something that I’m never at ease with in dystopian (especially YA) novels, at least the ones I’ve read so far: the world they’re set in too often feels like one country, and you’re left to wonder what’s happened to the others, why they’re not stepping in to counter said dystopian society, and so on. In Crewel, it seems there’s actually a reason to that, Arras indeed being one ‘bubble’ cut from the rest. (I say ‘seem’, because we may get to learn more about that in the second book, but I can’t say yet if the world-building in that one will deliver or not.)

The love triangle so common to a lot of YA novels was present, and not that useful; on the other hand, given the world developed by the author, at least *some* kind of love interest for Adelice was logical enough, since boys and girls were being kept separate from birth to 16, and I assume that seeing some for the first time without the barrier of segregation would quickly spark something. And it wasn’t too enforced, and wasn’t the main focus of the story. Besides, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that same-sex relationships were tackled as well: they too were bound to happen, so kudos to Gennifer Albin for not just conveniently sweep them under the rug and pretend they didn’t exist. The book wasn’t judgmental about that point, which was good.

I liked reading about the weaving process. It was a little confusing at first, but when I paid closer attention, it made more sense. I guess because “reality as a tapestry” and “weaving reality” are concepts I’m already familiar with (through another pen & paper game), so I managed to picture how it would work quickly enough. Perhaps this will be a more difficult aspect for the book for other readers, though, so I don’t know if it’s actually a quality or a flaw.

The one thing that left me annoyed sometimes were the characters, some of which felt a little too unidimensional, although their actions and reactions were understandable in such a world (Maela, for instance: she often felt like a cardboard villain, yet at the same time, I could fathom why she would behave like she did, having no other hopes in life than gaining power, and thus being personally threatened as soon as the power she had was challenged). And while I liked Adelice in most of the book, I felt it weird that while still enjoying some kind of ‘freedom’ before testing, she appeared as meek, shy and unnoticeable, yet as soon as she sets foot in a place where she’s going to be under even more scrutiny, and even more in danger, she starts standing her ground way too much for her own good. As said, I liked that aspect of the character (it made her able to step in and take acton), but I wish it would have been made clearer from the very beginning. As things were, I wondered at first if it was the same person I was reading about.

I have high hopes for the next book. But I’m also somewhat fearful, because of how the first one ended, and now I’m wondering how the world I liked seeing depicted in it will appear in the second one.

Yzabel / December 27, 2012

Review: Let The Right One In

Let the Right One in by John Ajvide Lindqvist

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Twelve-year-old Oskar is an outsider; bullied at school, dreaming about his absentee father, bored with life on a dreary housing estate. One evening he meets the mysterious Eli. As a romance blossoms between them, Oskar discovers Eli’s dark secret – she is a 200-year-old vampire, forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood.

Review:

I’ve thought some more about how to review this book, and I somehow feel that I should give it more stars, but I’m still unsure. Because it falls in that category of novels that leaves me “I liked it a lot, but…” (and though the ‘buts’ aren’t so easy to explain, they still remain).

In terms of how I like my vampires, “Let the Right One In” stands on the right side of the fence: there’s blood, there’s horror, and creatures who’re not sappy and not part of humanity anymore. Definitely a horror story, yes. I think that what lessened my appreciation of it was the pace (I’d have liked it a little faster); some of the secondary characters (I couldn’t connect with Lacke, Virginia and a few others); and how bleak everything was (but the latter part probably has more to do with my mood these days, so don’t take it as close to objective at all). I’d have been content enough if the story had revolved around Oskar, Eli and Håkan only. Also, there were a few moments that made me wonder how they hadn’t been found out yet, given their blunders in terms of feeding; I’d have assumed that any vampire as old as Eli would have learnt to plan better. (Well, I guess you can tell I did play “Vampire: the Masquerade”, and consider practical aspects first, huh?)

Special mention to Håkan, by the way, because creepy guy is so creepy. Kind of like a train wreck: it’s so horrible, but there’s some dark part inside you that keep you watching all the same. And somewhat liking it, too. Yes, it’s deeply disturbing, I know.

Yzabel / December 26, 2012

Review: The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

In this mesmerizing debut, a competition between two magicians becomes a star-crossed love story.

The circus arrives at night, without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within nocturnal black and white striped tents awaits a unique experience, a feast for the senses, where one can get lost in a maze of clouds, meander through a lush garden made of ice, stand awestruck as a tattooed contortionist folds herself into a small glass box, and gaze in wonderment at an illusionist performing impossible feats of magic.

Welcome to Le Cirque des Rêves. Beyond the smoke and mirrors, however, a fierce competition is underway–a contest between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood to compete in “a game,” in which each must use their powers of illusion to best the other. Unbeknownst to them, this game is a duel to the death, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will.

Review:

This is one of those curious cases where I find lots of faults with the book, yet still end up liking it.

The world of the circus depicted here fascinated me. I’m usually not up for lots of long descriptions, but the author’s writing flows so smoothly that I couldn’t help but being entranced, and find everything delightfully enchanting. Strong visual imagery of the circus, its tents, the characters, their clothes… kept on invading my mind, especially as the dominant colour scheme was all in black, white and grey, with a touch of purple, which are colours that speak to me like no others can (perhaps because of the whole ‘polar colours’ symbolism). Erin Morgenstern created a place full of eerie yet pleasant visions, and I couldn’t help but coming back to her book and read more about those.

The second reason why I liked it is something that a lot of people find fault with, but that I personally appreciate: shifting timelines. I’m quite good at navigating such narratives, and I’m fond of the foreshadowing (or the ‘aha, so THAT was it!’) aspects made possible through it.

On the other hand, the plot itself and the characters were the novel’s weak points for me. Mostly the characters are interesting because of their quirks, but I’m convinced the author could have done more with them, make her readers closer to them. And the plot wasn’t what the cover blurb advertised: intriguing, with a certain amount of suspense, yet not the daring, somewhat dangerous and active ‘competition’ I had been led to expect. It’s a shame, for I guess it wouldn’t have been a bother if from the start I had known that I was going to read something that was slower-paced, and different in many ways. Also, the love story may have been stronger, with more impact, if the two characters had been aware earlier on of who they were to each other, and if they had been able to compete really face to face, and have more time ‘together’. I understand that they got to know each other through their creations; still, it wasn’t exactly as palatable this way.

I liked how everything tied up in the end, though, and I may read the novel again later on, to see if this changes my perception of the whole story.

Yzabel / December 24, 2012

Review: Halfskin

Halfskin by Tony Bertauski

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Biomites are artificial stem cells that can replace any cell in your body. No more kidney failure, no severed spines or blood disease. No cancer. Pharmaceuticals become obsolete. With each dose of biomites, we become stronger, we become smarter and prettier.

We become better.

At what point are we no longer human?

Nix Richards nearly died in a car accident when he was young. Biomites saved his life. Ten years later, he’s not so lucky. The Halfskin Laws decree a human composed of 50% biomites is no longer human. Halfskins have no legal rights and will have their biomites shutdown. It’s not called murder, merely deactivation.

Cali Richards has been Nix’s legal guardian since their parents died. She has lost far too many people in her life to let the government take Nix. She is a nanobiometric engineer and will discover how to hide him. But even brilliance can succumb to the pressure of suffering. And technology can’t cure insanity.

Cali and Nix keep a slippery grip on reality as they elude a maniacal federal agent dedicated to saving humanity from what he calls ‘The Biomite Plague’.

Review:

(Book provided by the author through ARR #728 in the Making Connections group, in exchange for an honest review.)

This book surprised me in more than one way. It wasn’t exactly what I expected it to be at first (I think I expected something like car chases and the usual stuff you see in books/movies when an innocent has to elude the government/FBI/police), but this in itself wasn’t a problem, because what I got instead was just as interesting, if not more.

A few months ago, I read “The Annihilation of Foreverland” by the same author, which was already quite good in my opinion (and I could sense its shadow in the ‘dreamland’, too). In “Halfskin”, his writing is even better, and I had no problem picturing scene after scene. The world depicted by Tony Bertauski here is close enough to our own for a reader to quickly find his/her way in it. The major difference is the importance of widespread biomite technology, a technology that brings a lot of good things to humanity (healing, improved brain abilities…) yet has an underlying ‘dark side’, as biomites themselves behave like cancerous cells and keep on replicating, gradually replacing human tissues, even sane ones. The issues raised by this pervade the story, both through the main characters’ narratives and through the short blog entries and stories of a few other people; while the latter may seem unrelated at first, they do shed light on the pros and cons of biomite technology, in a balanced way that makes it hard to decide quickly “this is good” or “this is bad”. Here lies another side of the book I appreciated: it contains a lot of potential for such questions, but it doesn’t give us the answers, instead leaving us to reflect upon the technology itself and make our own opinion about it.

The characters themselves, especially Cali, Nix and Marcus, are all interesting in their own way, as well as believable. Nix just wants to live, like any other 17-year-old young man wants to, and it is later proved that he’s actually quite generous, going as far as to sustain a lie that is harmful to him in more than one way, in order to avoid harming another person. Cali has already lost too many beloved ones, and her desire to save her brother is very human and understandable. As for Marcus, his position is that of an integrist, yet it isn’t a totally blind one, for it is motivated by genuine concernt about what makes human beings human, and how to ensure that humanity as a whole doesn’t cross a supposed line that would doom it.

I found a few scenes in the last chapters confusing, though, especially the one in the hotel (I had to go backwards and read some things again to fully get what was happening); but I’m partly at fault, because I wasn’t reading in the best conditions either. I’m also not sure yet about the role played by the lagoon, although I think it made an interesting parallel to Cali’s other 5% of brain functions; but I like to think that said lagoon (and Raine) will be important in a potential sequel, and if there is one, I hope that the dreamland, as well as a couple of elements at the very end, will play a part.

Yzabel / December 17, 2012

Review: The Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

As a new age dawns in England’s twelfth century, the building of a mighty Gothic cathedral sets the stage for a story of intrigue and power, revenge and betrayal. It is in this rich tapestry, where kings and queens are corrupt – and one majestic creation will bond them forever.

Review:

I liked this book enough to want to read on and know what would happen next: even though some of it was predictable, it was kind of a given that reversals of fortunes and new developments would be part of it, and that was something I wanted to read at the moment, so it was alright with me. (Perhaps I wouldn’t have enjoyed it in other circumstances, though.)

The architectural descriptions were accurate enough; I didn’t know that much about cathedrals in that regard, and so I managed to learn a few things in the process. Also, there was a scene that happened in the town I currently live in, and I’ve always had a soft spot for cameos, not to mention that this one was unexpected (at least until the last third of the book).

I’m not giving it more than 3 stars, though, because mostly the characters weren’t that exceptional. I wanted to know more about what would happen to them, sure, and I partly felt connected to them, but nothing more. The ‘good guys’ sometimes did things that weren’t so good (for instance, what Jack did in the first Kingsbridge church), and this helped in making them appear a little less unidimensional. ‘A little less’ being the keyword here. The ‘bad guys’ were really bad, perhaps a little too much—in spite of Philip’s claims, Waleran struck me as greedy for power, period, not as a ‘genuine man of God’ who only took his duties so much to heart that any means to an end would do.

The other reason is the book’s length. I would’ve knocked a good 200 pages off it without blinking. After the first 600 pages or so, I started growing a little impatient, and wanted the twists and turns to stop and the plotlines to be resolved at last. (Good point, though, in that they all are; some readers may find fault in how conveniently everything gets tied together, but on the other hand, there’s nothing left hanging, and this can be a positive aspect too.)

Yzabel / December 14, 2012

Review: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice: or, On the Segregation of the Queen by Laurie R. King

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

In 1915, long since retired from his observations of criminal humanity, Sherlock Holmes is engaged in a reclusive study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. Never did he think to meet an intellect to match his own—until his acquaintance with Miss Mary Russell, a very modern fifteen-year-old whose mental acuity is equaled only by her audacity, tenacity, and penchant for trousers and cloth caps, unthinkable in any young lady of Holmes’s own generation.

Under Holmes’s sardonic tutelage, Russell hones her talent for deduction, disguises, and danger: in the chilling case of a landowner’s mysterious fever, and in the kidnapping of an American senator’s daughter in the wilds of Wales. But her ultimate challenge is yet to come. A near-fatal bomb on her doorstep—and another on Holmes’s—sends the two sleuths on the trail of a murderer whose machinations scatter meaningless clues and seem utterly without motive. The villain’s objective, however, is quite unequivocal: to end Russell and Holmes’s partnership—and their lives.

Review:

I’m going to add those books to the list of “novels I wish I had enjoyed more”. My opinion about it is very, very mixed.

The biggest peeve I have with it are what I’ll deem “weak characterization”. I read all the Sherlock Holmes canon—the novels as well as the short stories—and while I can enjoy a Sherlock that is a little different from Doyle’s (after all, I did enjoy Thomas Day’s over-the-top Holmes in L’Instinct de l’Equarrisseur), here it kept on feeling… wrong. Actually, the impression the whole novel left me with was that of fanfiction. Nicely written fanfic, alright (the style of the writing itself was really pleasant to read), but fanfic all the same, and not in the good meaning of the word. Mary Russell’s middle name must be “Sue”, and she suspiciously smelt of author self-insert; she’s pretty, witty, intelligent, has read a lot more than any girl her age, has got heaps of money waiting for her… and her ‘defects’ don’t really ring true (she had an awful lot of freedom, for someone supposed to be under her nasty, resenting aunt’s tutelage). From the start, I couldn’t push myself to like her, nor to like reading about her. She was just too perfect in many regards, and knowledgeable in too many areas, considering her age and past, especially at the beginning of the novel.

Next thing: stop bashing Watson, thank you. I’ve never enjoyed those versions of SH where Watson was just a bumbling idiot. He’s far from being it in Doyle’s stories, and even if he may seem clueless at times, let it also be said that anyone would look clueless, next to Sherlock Holmes (he’s a genius, after all—albeit a misogynistic one, with sociopath tendencies). I was deeply annoyed every time Mary felt compelled to make some remark about her “foolish Uncle John”, and, worse, when Holmes himself talked about him in similar terms. Or completely forgot about him when it was clear that he may be targeted too, and had to be reminded by Mary. No. Just no.

The story itself could have been more interesting, were it not for a certain amount of inconsistencies. First, why that foreword about how the author received a manuscript evidently written by Mary herself, yet had to correct its (I quote) “atrocious spelling”? That just doesn’t add up with Mary’s repeated intelligence, Oxford studies, and overall large bundle of knowledge (yes, I know “knowledge” doesn’t equal “excellent spelling”, but please, this was just too weird). Some of the events boggled the mind (the Palestine trip, for instance, didn’t bring anything to the story, and made me wonder what the heck was the point). Also, the novel felt more to me like a collection of short stories put together—as if they had been written that way first, and then only strung together with an overall plot added as an afterthought; this contributed to reinforcing my impression of all of this being originally fanfiction, with the author putting herself in a place of choice to live through adventures with her favourite character (from the signature at the bottom of the ‘introduction’ as well as from the characters’ behaviour, I’m going to take a guess and predict that in some later book, Mary will marry Holmes).

To be honest, I wouldn’t exactly say it’s a totally bad book. It’d have scored one more star from me if it had been a completely original story, without Sherlock Holmes, or maybe with just Mary working on her own cases, without him at her side, and only being a remote mentor. But as it is, Holmes would’ve better be left alone.

If you thoroughly enjoyed Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, don’t bother with this book. And if you haven’t read them yet, well, do that instead, too. It’ll be a much more interesting and fulfilling experience.