April 2013 - The Y Logs

Yzabel / April 30, 2013

Review: Ghostgirl

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And if I should die before I awake,
I pray the popular attend my wake.

Charlotte Usher feels practically invisible at school, and then one day she really is invisible. Even worse: she’s dead. And all because she choked on a gummy bear. But being dead doesn’t stop Charlotte from wanting to be popular; it just makes her more creative about achieving her goal.

If you thought high school was a matter of life or death, wait till you see just how true that is. In this satirical, yet heartfelt novel, Hurley explores the invisibility we all feel at some times and the lengths we’ll go to be seen.

Review:

Alright, what to start with…

I liked the cover. The packaging. The layout. The way the whole book is formatted. Actually, it’s what pushed me to buy it, since I found it at a low price at the bookstore. And… I guess that’s all? A perfect example of “don’t judge a book by its cover”.

This story could’ve been interesting, if only it had been carried in a different way. Unfortunately, things go down hill fast, very fast. The writing itself, for starters, is nerves-grating: lots of telling instead of showing, and resorting to so many adverbs that I stopped counting after chapter 2. The setting is that of a high school, but the style is at best middle school-level, and I’m not sure a high schooler would enjoy it—so I don’t have any idea about what the targetted audience was.

The characters came out as flat and cliché at their worst: all the cheerleaders are sluts, the Goth Girl, the jocks… If the whole book had been treated as a real parody, it may actually have been enjoyable; however, it fell in the middle, hovering between attempts at being funny and a more serious kind of story. And thus, the end result was a pile of clichés that weren’t even amusing. Parents and family are thrown out of the window with the assumption that “teenagers are so self-centered that they just don’t care about them once they’re dead”. Yeah, right, I so believe that. YA literature in general doesn’t bother about family much, but in this book, this trope is brought to its apex, and with a stupid reason to boot.

The story itself didn’t make much sense. The dead kids have to protect a house, but we’re never told why (as a reader, I would’ve liked to at least know, even if the characters themselves weren’t meant to). The living kids are allowed to hold a ball in a place that was pronounced unsafe, something that just doesn’t compute. Charlotte is supposed to be the girl nobody pays attention to, yet she’s bullied by the popular girls, which doesn’t fit much the “invisible girl” concept–such people are just ignored, not bullied. She’s also so shallow and selfish, with a definite streak of stalker, that there was no way for me to like her or empathize with her predicament; everything bad that happened to her, she brought upon herself, anyway. And let’s not talk about the pop-culture references. I’m all for cameos and insiders, except that those weren’t of much use here.

Again, it could’ve been a good story if it had really played on humour and clichés. This was the story I wanted to get; alas, it’s not the story I got.

Yzabel / April 26, 2013

Review: Assured Destruction

Assured Destruction by Michael F. Stewart

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

You can learn a lot about someone looking through their hard drive…

Sixteen-year-old Jan Rose knows that nothing is ever truly deleted. At least, not from the hard drives she scours to create the online identities she calls the Shadownet.

Hobby? Art form? Sad, pathetic plea to garner friendship, even virtually? Sure, Jan is guilty on all counts. Maybe she’s even addicted to it. It’s an exploration. Everyone has something to hide. The Shadownet’s hard drives are Jan’s secrets. They’re stolen from her family’s computer recycling business Assured Destruction. If the police found out, Jan’s family would lose its livelihood.

When the real people behind Shadownet’s hard drives endure vicious cyber attacks, Jan realizes she is responsible. She doesn’t know who is targeting these people or why but as her life collapses Jan must use all her tech savvy to bring the perpetrators to justice before she becomes the next victim.

Review:

(Book provided by the author through ReadIt & Reap 126 in the Shut Up & Read group, in exchange for an honest review.)

“Assured Destruction” is a story I enjoyed a lot, fast and easy to read. The first thing I liked was its heroine, Jan, who for a change isn’t your typical “unpopular nerdy girl” (as too often seen in YA novels), but actually has real technical skills, and puts them to use. She’s also flawed in more than one way, yet manages to learn from her mistakes—mistakes that could have dire consequences, and not for herself only. After all, she’s playing with people’s private lives, building her Shadownet.

By the way, I enjoyed the Shadownet idea, too. It has a lot of potential, and I can see several possibilities with such an idea, if the author decides to go on with it in the other books. (I don’t know if he will; I just like it when a book prompts me to imagine potential plot lines, challenges my imagination, and don’t just leave me “passive”.) I probably sit at the frontier between two worlds here, too: savvy enough myself regarding computers and internet security to understand the technical lingo without batting an eyelid, but not enough to spot if there were incoherent parts in how Jan do things… so I won’t judge the book on that. On the other hand, I think that even if you’re not familiar with computer science, said lingo is still depicted in ways that can allow you to understand what’s happening.

There are moments when I wondered about Jan’s reactions, though, because they seemed a little rushed, or not as clever as I would’ve expected. That said, she’s no action figure either, so perhaps there’s logics to her madness, so to say; and given her circumstances, simply putting the matter into the hands of adult figures wouldn’t cut it, indeed. At least she realizes she had made a mess of things, and tried to take responsibility by righting those in her own ways.

I wasn’t so thrilled about the love interests part. It seemed to me that they weren’t important to the story, that the latter could’ve been the same without them. Maybe it’s just me, because love triangles aren’t my thing anyway. Fortunately, said triangle doesn’t take too much room, and doesn’t detract from the story: Jan remains focused on repairing her mistakes, and doesn’t go around swooning over guys for 100 pages. Thank you, Mr. Stewart, for keeping her true to herself, and not going for the cliché girly behaviour.

Those quibbles put aside, the story mostly flowed without a hitch for me. I think it’s also a good theme for the YA audience in general, because it shows, through Jan, how internet and the use of new technologies has its downfalls. I’ve been able to see by myself, more than once, that younger people (I mean the 13-16 crowd mostly) aren’t all aware that what they post online could be turned into a weapon against them (=cyber-bullying). Somehow, “Assured Destruction” could very well be a story that would help such teenagers to understand, while not dumbing down things, and not doing it in a condescending, pompous and artificial way.

Yzabel / April 19, 2013

Review: Echo

Echo by Alicia Wright Brewster

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.