January 2015 - The Y Logs

Yzabel / January 30, 2015

Review: Mind The Gap

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Darius Ibrahim is not having a good week.

He’s been threatened by a knife-wielding maniac on a London train, interrogated by a mysterious warrior woman beneath the city’s streets, pursued by a military death squad in Melbourne, had his new girlfriend kidnapped and held hostage in Prague, and been captured and taken to another world.

And it’s barely been three days since his life started to fall to pieces.

On top of all this, he’s developed a bizarre ability that allows him to teleport in quite unusual circumstances – an ability that several deadly enemies will do anything to gain control of.

In a desperate struggle involving alternate worlds, Egyptian mythology, ancient prophecy, malevolent felines, underground railway stations and the power of dreams, can Darius long survive the arrival of his newfound power?

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

2.5 stars. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t enthrall me as much as the blurb led me to expect. It contained its lot of good ideas (I’ve always had a fond spot for teleportation as a power, as well as for the Tube and underground trains, for some reason), while others felt muddled and confusing.

There’s a prophecy, and several parties competing around it to seize the “Chosen One” in the middle of all this; but after a while I started to realise I didn’t really know much about their motives, except for the most obvious ones, and it made for a plot that was at once complex yet underdeveloped. (One of the parties wanted to conquer, the other was striving for a certain being to come back to earth, the third and fourth one… I’m not exactly sure, in fact.) A few things were strange, too, such as the “bad guys” calling Darius “the boy”—he’s a grown man, not a teenager, so “the young man”, at the least, would have felt more justified. “Boy” just didn’t cut it for me.

The characters in general would have deserved to be fleshed out more. And though the relationship between Darius and Viv was somewhat amusing (in a good way), thanks to their interactions, it developed a bit too fast to justify the whole “will go to every length to find you again”. One event particularly put one character in extreme danger, as said character dove into a totally unknown situation with only a very basic plan, a.k.a “I’ll let them capture me and we’ll be together again”.

I liked seing Egyptian mythology included, and alternate worlds. However the world-building never went far enough for me, remaining on a stereotypical level, whether it was Mas-Ra, the lands controlled by the Horus Alliance, the place where the third party came from, or even our own Earth, as the characters move so fast from one location to the other. In a way, the story was long without being long enough. Very, very strange.

The ending happened too fast, with a lot of people/beings appearing, then vanishing, all piling on the rest. The epilogue also felt out of place somehow. It’s clearly here to introduce a second book, when this one seemed to be self-sufficient plot-wise.

Yzabel / January 26, 2015

Review: Billy Lovecraft Saves the WorldBilly Lovecraft Saves the World

Billy Lovecraft Saves the World by Billy Lovecraft

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

The last thing Billy Lovecraft’s parents sent him before the crash was a photo of something on the wing of their plane.

Now he’s stuck with a horrible and heart-breaking mystery: What was that awful creature, and why were his parents targeted?

It’s up to Billy to gather a team of like-minded kids and lead them through a dark new reality where the monsters are real, not everyone is who they seem to be, and an ancient alien wants to devour the world.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

It’s kind of difficult forme to rate this book higher, though I hoped (and wanted) to. In general, it was a light, fun read, and I did enjoy it. The style was a bit too juvenile to my liking, but for a middle-grade audience, this would be quite all right. And, anyway, Lovecraftian mythos for the win. Especially if you have played the Call of Cthulhu pen and paper RPG, you just can’t help remember those sanity rolls, those poor Investigators ending up mad, dead, digested into some eldritch ceature’s stomach, not necessarily in that order, mind you. There’s something deeply enjoyable in such a setting for me. Also, eldritch cuteness factor as far as Cthulittle was concerned: talk about a weird combination.

This novel has an inherent flaw, though, in that its protagonists and tone seem at odds with its potential target audience. The characters were between 10 and 12, basically either at the end of elementary school or at the very beginning of middle school (depending on one’s perception of the schooling system in their own country, that is). Their actions and reactions are often those of kids, yet at times they display features that I’d expect to crop up in older teenagers, not in pre-teens.

The other problem is the very mythos the story is based on. I remember discovering and reading Lovecraft’s works when I was 15-17, not before (and I used to read horror stories before that). I’m really not sure a 12-year-old reader would be familiar with all the references, and unfortunately, once you remove those, the story remains nice, but… nothing extraordinary either.

I think it would be more interesting, and reach a wider audience, if the tone had been more YA and the protagonists a wee bit older. (But maybe that’s just me.)

Yzabel / January 25, 2015

Review: Zombies – More Recent Dead

Zombies: More Recent Dead by Paula Guran

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the twenty-first century: they are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves – and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival – as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction. We’ve again dug up the best stories published in the last few years and compiled them into an anthology to feed your insatiable hunger…

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

Anthologies are always difficult for me to rate—so many different stories, so many authors, and you know you’re bound to find very good pieces, and some you don’t like at all. As far as collections go, this one about zombies was a fairly good one, all in all, that I would rate a 3.5 to 4 stars.

(Also, the time I spend reading a book is usually a good indicator of my interest in it, but in this case, it doesn’t apply. I was reading a couple of other zombie-themed books in the meantime, and I preferred to go slow, rather than eat too much of the same thing at once. pun totally intended, of course.)

My favourites:
– “Iphigenia in Aulis”: the story that spun “The Girl With All The Gifts”, so no surprise here. Reading this “first draft” was interesting, even though I liked the novel better (since it was more developed).
– “The Naturalist”: nasty and vicious undertones here.
– “What Maisie Knew”: a dark and twisted take on what use zombies can be. Somehow it also made me think of “Lolita”, probably because of the way the narrator views himself?
– “The Day the Music Died”: a manager trying to cover up that his money-making rock-star is actually dead. This one had a twisted, funny side that spoke to me. Don’t ask me why.
– “The Death and Life of Bob”: how zombies are not necessarily what you expect… and how dark and narrow-minded humans can be, too.
– “Jack and Jill”: parallels between the zombies and a child who’s sick with cancer and already a “living dead”, in that he knows he probably won’t stay in remission for long. (The fact that *I* actually enjoyed a story with cancer in it is mind-boggling, and speaks of how it managed to make me forget my own fears in that regard.)
– “The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring”: a remote little town where people don’t seem to stay dead for long. Disturbing, strange, quirky, and full of moments when I wondered to which extent the inhabitants would go to keep their gravedigger.
– “Chew”: disturbing not for its take on zombies, but for what actual human beings can do to other human beings.
– “What We Once Feared”: another story bent on revealing how bleak human nature can be, and how dire situations can reveal the worst in people.
– “Aftermath”: the title says it all. How people manage and how life gets back on track slowly after the cure to the zombie-virus has been found. Disturbing aspects about what killing those “zombies” actually meant.
– “Love, Resurrected”: a dark fantasy tale of sorcery, necromancy, and of a woman who has to keep battling even after the flesh has left her bones.
– “Present”: sad and touching in a terrible way.
– “Bit Rot”: when a zombie story collides with science-fiction of the space-travelling kind. The reason behind the “bit rot” was a nice change for me.

OK stories:
– “The Afflicted”: I liked the idea behind it (the elderly ones only falling ill… alas, everybody’s doom to grow old), but it deflated a bit after a while.
– “Becca at the End of the World”: the last hour of a teenager. However, it was a little too short to be as powerful as it could be IMHO.
– “Delice”: not one I’ll remember for long, but nice to read
– “Trail of Dead”: good concept, but I’m not too sure of the apprentice’s part in that (it seemed unfocused).
– “Stemming the Tide”: a little weird, though also poetic in its own way.
– “Those Beneath the Bog”: the curse on a lake, and how old folk tales shouldn’t be discarded. Perhaps a wee bit too long, though.
– “What Still Abides”: very, very weird, in that it tries to emulate Old English grammar. I can’t make up my mind about it, but overall, it still felt strange in a sort of good way for me.
– “In The Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection”: beautiful and dreamy. Not exactly a zombie story, though.
– “‘Til Death Do Us Part”: not exactly original, still enjoyable. A wife comes back from the grave, and her family tries to keep her with them.
– “The Harrowers”: the narrator’s name kind of tiped me about the ending, however it remained interesting.
– “Resurgam”: a good idea that unfortunately ended up in two storylines not meshing up together well. I still liked the Victorian narrative, though.
– “A Shepherd of the Valley”: a bit predictable.
– “The Hunt: Before and The Aftermath”: I wasn’t sure at first where this one was going, but it had interesting insights into revenge in general.

The ones I didn’t like:
– “Dead Song”: I didn’t care for the actor-narrating-story approach. Another one might have worked better, because there was a good idea behind it.
– “Pollution”: I like Japanese culture, but the tropes were too heavy-handed here.
– “Kitty’s Zombie New Year”: forgettable, I didn’t really see the point to this story.
– “Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead”: the narrative style didn’t do it for me at all here. Which is really too bad, because the different setting made for quite interesting grounds.
– “Rocket Man”: I don’t know if it was meant to be comical or not. It didn’t leave much of an impression (but then, I’m not too interested in base-ball for starters, which doesn’t help).
– “I Waltzed with a Zombie”: I couldn’t push myself to get interested in it, I don’t know why. I neither adore nor terribly dislike Hollywood B-movie settings in general, so maybe it was the narrative that didn’t grab me.

Note: A couple of stories are actually in poetic form, which makes them harder to rate (yes, including Neil Gaiman’s one).

Yzabel / January 21, 2015

Review: Wish You Weren’t

Wish You Weren’t by Sherrie Petersen

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Marten doesn’t believe in the power of wishes. None of his have ever come true. His parents ignore him, his little brother is a pain and his family is talking about moving to Texas. Not cool. So when he makes an impulsive wish during a meteor shower, he doesn’t expect it to make any difference.

Until his annoying brother disappears.

With the present uncertain and his brother’s future in limbo, Marten finds himself stuck in his past. And if he runs out of time, even wishes might not be enough to save the ones he loves.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

A quick and entertaining read, that could appeal to a lot of middle-graders, especially the first-borns who (like me *wink* *wink*) found themselves “trapped” at 11-12 with a younger sibling they had to be responsible for, and burdened with the feeling that life was so unfair. Seriously, even 20-odd years later, I could still relate, remembering how that was the way I felt towards my own sister at the time. A book that can appeal to older readers through the chasm of time, well, isn’t that something?

The story was sometimes pretty bizarre, and I suppose I would’ve liked some parts to be better explained (let’s just say Tör isn’t the most straightforward character when it comes to answering questions). It may or may not be a problem, in that having such answers doesn’t really matter in the end, but not having them made things a little confusing, so it’s a tie here. For instance, I would’ve liked to see more of the watches, how exactly they worked, etc: not essential to the story and the message it conveys… but still something that would titillate my curiosity. The shooting stars part felt confusing somewhat confusing, and a couple of points (such as, people able to see the characters when they weren’t supposed to) were maybe too easily chalked out to “things aren’t working as intended”, without anything to support the why and how behind it.

The characterss reactions weren’t always the most clever, to be honest. However, being 12 and stranded and without any advice to go by, I guess you can’t help but making mistakes. I wouldn’t have forgiven this is an older character; I could forgive Marten, though, all the more because he also realised soon enough how exactly he felt about his brother, whose “fault” things were, and because he grew up in the process, becoming more understanding of the people around him.

This book is also interesting for its bits of astronomy: not too many, nothing impossible to understand for a younger reader, and at the same time this is something that could make one look further (which is also why the book provides links at the end, towards various websites about the Hubble telescope and other astronomy-related themes).

In short: a pretty sweet novel, with a few holes, but nonetheless enjoyable for younger readers.

Yzabel / January 20, 2015

Review: The Silence of Six

The Silence of Six by E.C. Myers

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

“What is the silence of six, and what are you going to do about it?”

These are the last words uttered by 17-year-old Max Stein’s best friend, Evan: Just moments after hacking into the live-streaming Presidential debate at their high school, he kills himself.

Haunted by the image of Evan’s death, Max’s entire world turns upside down as he suddenly finds himself the target of a corporate-government witch-hunt. Fearing for his life and fighting to prove his own innocence, Max goes on the run with no one to trust and too many unanswered questions.

Max must dust off his own hacking skills and maneuver the dangerous labyrinth of underground hacktivist networks, ever-shifting alliances, and virtual identities — all while hoping to find the truth behind the “Silence of Six” before it’s too late.

Review:

(I got an ARC through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

3.5 stars, because the book wasn’t without faults. In fact, I’d probably give it 4 stars in other circumstances—that is, if I didn’t know a lot to the online world, computers in general, and hackers. Some parts I found to be too “didactic”, which would be good for a reader with a less technological background, yet tended to become annoying after a while (I really don’t need to be taught what a DDoS attack is). However, this is a “it’s not you, it’s me” kind of fault, and I don’t doubt it’s precisely what would help another person enjoy the story more.

The events in the last third of the book also seemed to move just a tad bit too fast, making things somewhat confusing. I guess I would have liked to see more hide and seek there? Or a different approach? It’s actually hard to tell. I just know that I went “huh?” in a couple of places.

I liked the main characters, the ways they went through to meeting, and how they generally thought of clever little tricks to avoid being noticed (how to trick facial recognition software, etc.). Perhaps their relationship was a little forced, but it didn’t matter that much within the flow of the story.

The reflections the book leads to when it comes to social media and their impact on our lives, were interesting as well. So many people use their real names on such media, handing out very specific information, without realising that it could be exploited. Reminding this to younger readers (middle-schoolers, the “YA crowd”…) is certainly not a bad idea at all. Anyway, the use of social media, through the giant “Panjea”, was both a reminder and a wink, and I appreciate that kind of things.

Overall, it was a light, fast-paced read that could be quite enjoyable for a lot of readers. Had I been “younger” (less experienced, with less computer/online knowledge than I have now), I’d probably have given it 4 stars.

Yzabel / January 10, 2015

Review: The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ‘Jess and Jason’, she calls them. Their life – as she sees it – is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough.

Now everything’s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar.

Now they’ll see; she’s much more than just the girl on the train…

Review:

(I got an ARC through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

3.5 to 4 stars. Perhaps not the most original thriller ever for someone who’s read a lot of such books already, but for me—since I seldom read that genre—it was an interesting story. Guessing who the culprit is turned out to be relatively easy, but this book is of the kind where the whodunnit doesn’t really matter: it’s how it happened, how and why the person got there, that is the most important part. The fact that the narrators are all more or less unreliable, especially Rachel, also add to the confusion, in a good way.

The story is told in first person, from three women’s points of view, and each of those give a different insight and different sorts of tidbits, allowing to piece things together gradually. They’re all flawed protagonists in their own ways, and this can be seen as either annoying or fascinating, depending on where you stand on the matter. Sometimes, they seemed pretty weak and clingy (as in, being unhappy about their lives but not exactly doing much to change things); on the other hand, I guess we all know that big changes in general aren’t so easy to enact as it sounds, and so those protagonists are both relatable and slightly grating, because they might force us to face some problems of our own. (Had I read this book during another period in my life, I might have been uneasy, feeling like I was confronted with things I should be doing, but wasn’t.)

Whether one ends up liking or disliking the protagonists doesn’t really matter, because it’s clear they aren’t meant to be a hundred percent likeable, and that their roles are never all black or all white. Rachel’s alcohol problem and disturbing voyeuristic side (watching people from the train, imagining what their lives may be, then wanting to make her own place in those lives…). Anna who acts all righteous but who still was the proverbial bull in a chine-shop. “Jess” whose boredom is understandable, but who also twists truths in her own narrative. “Jason” who may not be such the perfect husband. And so on.

I would probably not call this book “the next Gone Girl“, though… but then, I don’t like comparing novels in general in such a way. This one stands on its own.