March 2015 - The Y Logs

Yzabel / March 29, 2015

Review: Walking the Labyrinth

Walking the Labyrinth by Lisa Goldstein

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Private investigator John Stow’s questions about Molly Travers’ family pique her interest when relatives that she supposed dead and buried begin to appear, alive and working real magic.

Review:

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

2.5 stars, between “OK” and “I liked it.” I very much enjoyed the magical/illusion aspects in this book: the concept of the Labyrinth, questioning people and their motives, “taking a new turn” when you learn something new, and how just about anything could be turned into a lesson—often not the most obvious one. The Order, done partly through the journal of one of its earliest members, had one of those late Victorian flavours that I tend to like. Secret societies, people trying to get a glimpse of mysteries through communing with spirits… And power, the “Gift” passed from parents to children in the Allalie family, something that could be used for good (for instance, whether it was on purpose or not, Dodd did stop drinking after that night in the prologue), but also for less than shiny endeavours.

The writing itself was fairly good, and managed to evoke vivid imagery of the magic shows in the 1920s and 1930s (or at least, what I’d expect magic shows to be like). The antics, relationships, tensions and weirdness of Molly’s family were easy to grasp, and definitely interesting.

What prevented me from enjoying this story more were the characters first and foremost. While the premise was intriguing and fascinating, I couldn’t connect with any of them. The Allalies were too shrouded in mystery and half-lies to feel like actual people, and Molly often struck me as bumbling around without any idea of what she was doing: not in terms of investigating (after all, she wasn’t a private eye or a cop, so it made sense she wouldn’ have such reflexes etched in her), but as a person. Maybe it’s just me, but from the beginning, her behaviour when Peter was concerned just made me feel like smacking her to put some sense into her. This made it harder to reconcile with how she evolved towards the end, going from clueless to maybe too resourceful.

There were also a few instances of characters popping out of nowhere, more as plot devices than as people: the man in England, the people from the Order… Their roles didn’t feel really defined, and they would’ve deserved more spotlight in order to look like they had a place of their own in the story. Same goes for clues that appeared without enough groundwork having been laid beforehand. This ended for me as a strange mix of predictability (the Allalie’s family name was so obvious) and “wait, what, where did that come from?” reactions. The story tended to plod, and there were moments I found myself reading in the hopes I’d get more out of it, rather than because I was genuinely involved in it fully. The journey mattered more than the ending, but I wished said journey had streamed more seamlessly, without the constant feeling of being driven by plot devices.

Overall: worth borrowing, but maybe not buying.

Yzabel / March 25, 2015

Review: The Girl At Midnight

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

Beneath the streets of New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the Avicen are the only family she’s ever known.

Echo is clever and daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she’s fiercely loyal. So when a centuries-old war crests on the borders of her home, she decides it’s time to act.

Legend has it that there is a way to end the conflict once and for all: find the Firebird, a mythical entity believed to possess power the likes of which the world has never seen. It will be no easy task, though if life as a thief has taught Echo anything, it’s how to hunt down what she wants . . . and how to take it.

But some jobs aren’t as straightforward as they seem. And this one might just set the world on fire.

Review:

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

I really wanted to like this book, all the more since I had loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but there’s a fine line between “if you liked this, you’ll like that as well” and “it’s so similar you get to wonder where one ends and the other begins”. Not very original. Same comment regarding the comparison with the Shadowhunters series (which isn’t so original to start with, but that’s another story). As a result, I kept being distracted by the plot turns and character dynamics that were either too close to the one series or too close to the other; in the end, The Girl at Midnight didn’t manage to stand on its own for me.

Very obviously, we have Echo/Karou, Caius/Akiva, Ala/Brimstone. Ruby is reminiscent of Madrigal’s “friend” in DoSaB. (There’s more, but details would lead to spoilers). The relationship between Caius and Dorian is pretty similar to the one between Jace and Alec, including the way it develops when Jasper/Magnus waltzes in. So many common points made it difficult to see the characters for who they could have been, and they remained closer to copies, instead of appearing like people with personalities of their own. Granted, the teasing between Jasper and Dorian was funny, but I couldn’t shake off my impression of “hey, I’ve already seen that…”, along with the feeling that relationships in general evolved too quickly in this book.

Relationships: they were all over the place, and not too subtly. I wasn’t aware that Echo had a boyfriend until it smacked me in the face, leaving me wondering where that guy came from. (Not to mention that this poor boy seemed to be here just because one love interest wasn’t enough and another one was deemed necessary. Basically, he was treated like dirt.) Also, too many mushy descriptions, with our heroine too busy being driven by the love triangle to actually make me feel that she was really involved in the plot—although she does have a fairly important part, one that could have been really good to read about if things hadn’t gone too fast.

It’s not a long novel, but the pacing was definitely strange: lots of events happening in little time, relationships developing too fast, and yet the story was slow. The world-building wasn’t enough to my liking: we get all those nice thresholds, jumping through portals, magic powder, sometimes magical descriptions of places (bonus points for Strasbourg, this city is absolutely lovely—trust me, I lived there for more than 10 years)… but the two races at war, the war itself, didn’t feel like “solid”. I would’ve wanted to know so much more about those, how they came to be in such a conflict, the souring relationship between Tanith and Caius, how the Drakharin and Avicen lived… More information in that regard would have allowed me to see the world this story’s set in as more strongly grounded. (I guess this would have been less of a problem if I could have fallen back on the characters, only I couldn’t, due to the aforementioned similarities. Same goes for the writing: it hadn’t the flow of DoSaB’s, nor did it bring a really fascinating atmoshpere to Echo’s surroundings.)

Conclusion: there were good ideas in this novel, but most often they were too close to stronger, existing ones that it was very difficult to see The Girl at Midnight as a self-contained story.

Yzabel / March 23, 2015

Review: The Raven’s Head

The Raven’s Head by Karen Maitland

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Vincent is an apprentice librarian who stumbles upon a secret powerful enough to destroy his master. With the foolish arrogance of youth, he attempts blackmail but the attempt fails and Vincent finds himself on the run and in possession of an intricately carved silver raven’s head.

Any attempt to sell the head fails … until Vincent tries to palm it off on the intimidating Lord Sylvain – unbeknown to Vincent, a powerful Alchemist with an all-consuming quest. Once more Vincent’s life is in danger because Sylvain and his neighbours, the menacing White Canons, consider him a predestined sacrifice in their shocking experiment.

Review:

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

The theme of this story was interesting enough, but unfortunately, I never felt it grab me, and found myself at times not really caring whether I was keeping on reading, or taking a break to read something else.

The descriptions and atmosphere were vivid enough. This isn’t glamourised historical fiction: when people pee in the street, they do, and when they’re in a ghastly environment, they are. The author’s writing made it fairly easy to picture the characters’ surroundings and their lives—the sinister manor, Gisa’s daily drudgery, the boys trembling in fear at night at the abbey, expecting to be seized never to return…

However, the characters themselves didn’t leave me with a lasting impression. I liked how they were portrayed with their imperfections (Vincent especially: he started with justifying his bad actions as if they were logical, and I must say I quite enjoy such characters, bordering on sociopathic in their way of seeing the world while being the heroes of their own story). But only a few hours after finishing this novel, I’m already not exactly sure anymore of what they did, nor of what the plot tried to achieve. It took some time to get there, and mostly the protagonists were too passive, with things happening around them, or to them, without prompting a strong enough reaction. Gisa’s passivity was all the more infuriating that she tried to help someone, but so slowly that her repeated thoughts of “wanting to save that person” felt fake (and a mere plot twist to lead to the decisions she made later).

In fact, the characters were here mostly to make the plot happen without giving vibes of being real people, with lives of their own. Their background stories looked interesting, but remained just that: in the background. All that was very weird, because the chapters were short, yet seemed to drag at the same time.

I also didn’t get—still don’t—the necessity for a switch between the first person and third person, complete with present tense. I have no idea why this kind of style keeps popping in novels more and more, and I wish I could see its point, because so far, it’s been more jarring than anything else. It didn’t achieve anything for me, didn’t give me a sense of immediacy, and only made me keep wondering “wait, why are we doing that again”? Which in turn kept breaking my reading stride.

Not an infuriating book, but one that I’ll proceed to quickly forget.

Yzabel / March 15, 2015

Review: Harrison Squared

Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Harrison Harrison—H2 to his mom—is a lonely teenager who’s been terrified of the water ever since he was a toddler in California, when a huge sea creature capsized their boat, and his father vanished. One of the “sensitives” who are attuned to the supernatural world, Harrison and his mother have just moved to the worst possible place for a boy like him: Dunnsmouth, a Lovecraftian town perched on rocks above the Atlantic, where strange things go on by night, monsters lurk under the waves, and creepy teachers run the local high school.

On Harrison’s first day at school, his mother, a marine biologist, disappears at sea. Harrison must attempt to solve the mystery of her accident, which puts him in conflict with a strange church, a knifewielding killer, and the Deep Ones, fish-human hybrids that live in the bay. It will take all his resources—and an unusual host of allies—to defeat the danger and find his mother.

Review:

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

A good story (definitely a 3.5 stars more than a 3), but one that also confirms once again that, in my opinion, “Lovecraftian influences” don’t go too well with “written for YA audience”: they need to be too downplayed, and end up too remote from the usually bleak, no-hope tone the original stories used to have, combined to the feeling of Sublime (in Burke’s meaning of this word) elicited by the appearance of Old Ones and various eldritch creatures. In turn, the novel was interesting, but…

I didn’t experience the same fascination I had when reading We Are All Completely Fine (the novel where H2 appears as an adult, along with another victim of the Scrimshander). The ingredients were here, only it didn’t seem there was much of a sense of danger, in a setting that begged anyone, reader included, to run away without ever looking back. It would have been better if it had been upped to real horror, and not, I suspect, downplayed to fit a younger public. (Especially since teenagers can very well read and appreciate genuine Lovecraft stories—I started reading those when I was 15, and it never was a problem.)

On the other hand, this book introduces characters I liked reading about. Selena was funny, yet definitely here to support her nephew in spite of the way she first appeared as “childish”: not the air-head she seemed to be, but a grown-up and serious woman, simply with a punny take on life. The kids had more depth than I would have given them credit for at first—including Lub, who kept making me smile but whose own approach on life must somehow have made lonely, in regard to his peers. And there was not a hint of romance between Harrison and Lydia (although everybody insisted she was his girlfriend, both made fun of this and dismissed it immediately). It’s refreshing enough in a category where every boy and girl always seems to find his/her “soul mate” two days after the beginning of the story.

The setting itself, Dunnsmouth, also hit the spot as far as “gloomy” and “creepy” were concerned. The strange atmosphere at school, the weird subjects (non-Euclidean geometry? Making nets? Uh…), the kids who all look like each others, the teachers with strange behaviours, the mysterious library with its equally mysterious librarian… These were well-rendered. No matter what, both in terms of settings and characters, I still found the Scrimshander as fascinating as ever. An urban-legend villain without a definite face, half-hidden under the brim of his hat, popping out of nowhere, performing gruesome magic by engraving bones with portraits of his victims… I thought he was intriguing in WAACF, and he remained fascinating here.

Conclusion: a good novel, only one I wish had upped the stakes where the horror element was concerned.

Yzabel / March 10, 2015

Review: Masters of Blood and Bone

Masters of Blood and Bone by Craig Saunders

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Holland’s a man who’s good with death. Good at death.

When his daughter goes missing, he finds himself pitted in a deadly game against the Gods themselves. Powerful enemies surround him—a changeling, a mage, and a god who wants to destroy the world.

With silver bullets in his gun and death on his mind, Holland aims to set things right…or die trying.

For the captors of Holland’s daughter, death is not only on it’s way, it’s in their very possession as Holland’s daughter isn’t just a girl…in fact, she’s barely mortal at all…

She’s Ankou, Death’s daughter, and she’s not an easy mark.

The battleground has been set, the world’s at stake, and all Hell is about the break loose.

Review:

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

This was a strange tale, full of darkness and eerily fascinating, bordering at times on grotesque regarding the way some characters were depicted. A tale of gods walking the Earth, of legendary characters come back to life, of cruel deeds from the past done for a vision that was already corrupted before it ended. A tale of craziness, of people bigger than life, of exaggeration and little things all thrown together, in which mages escape from books bound by cursed sorcery. It’s man at at its crudest, at its maddest, and also man at its greatest level, full of love and ready to shake the whole world to find the one person that matters.

I thoroughly enjoyed Holland as a character. A no-nonsense man, who knows when to kill but also when not to, who doesn’t particularly enjoy it but will not shirk away from this “duty” of his when needed. Physically, he was far removed from the typical protagonist—no rippling abs here—but he had a strong charisma of his own. I felt he was poised between his condition of someone who can see the dead, and someone who’s just trying to give his daughter a normal life, even though said daughter.

Ank, too, wasn’t what I had expected her to be, and that was for the best. The blurb was a little misleading, presenting the story using an angle that isn’t exactly the one I found while reading, and at first I believed she would be the helpless kidnapped kid, but… no. Due to her nature, she wasn’t as close to humanity as Holland, yet even though this made her harder to get attached to, it still was logical in her case. And let’s not forget The Book.

The novel also puts an interesting twist on several mythological characters (the God, the mage, what one does, what the other did). I admit that at times, I wasn’t sure why they acted the way they did; however, it was also made clear that they were mad, so this worked for me in the end. The place of the “final battle” was a tad bit cliché, but depicted in prose that made it look almost magical, if corrupted—the way the novel tackled other themes and people, mixing beauty and darkness.

On the less bright side, I may have wanted just a little more in terms of characters, as I could only really “feel” Ank and Holland; although the nature of the others made this understandable, I guess this is just one of those cases when I would’ve liked to get to know the enemy some more. And a few things in the writing tended to grate on my nerves, especially the sometimes heavy use of “…”. If you don’t mind those, good for you; I just get easily annoyed (visually) with that. That’s a somewhat minor point, though.

Yzabel / March 8, 2015

Review: The Boy with the Porcelain Blade

The Boy with the Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Lucien de Fontein has grown up different. One of the mysterious and misshapen Orfano who appear around the Kingdom of Landfall, he is a talented fighter yet constantly lonely, tormented by his deformity, and well aware that he is a mere pawn in a political game. Ruled by an insane King and the venomous Majordomo, it is a world where corruption and decay are deeply rooted – but to a degree Lucien never dreams possible when he first discovers the plight of the ‘insane’ women kept in the haunting Sanatoria.

Told in a continuous narrative interspersed with flashbacks we see Lucien grow up under the care of his tutors. We watch him forced through rigorous Testings, and fall in love, set against his yearning to discover where he comes from, and how his fate is tied to that of every one of the deformed Orfano in the Kingdom, and of the eerie Sanatorio itself.

Review:

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

Between “it’s OK” and “I liked it”, so 2.5 stars I guess.

I liked the premise of a Renaissance-like world, the focus on a castle that was like a city of its own, and the inner House politics. There was much potential here for intrigue of that kind, and I would’ve liked to see more of it—but didn’t, because Lucien, while being at the heart of it, was also more of an observer or a follower most of the time. Follower of other people’s wishes, or of habit, or of the plot itself. I often felt that he was submitting to, and reacting to the action, rather than making actual decisions.

I also didn’t know what to make of the Orfani in general. The novel was too ambiguous about them, as if unable to decide what to make of them as well. They were both privileged and rejected, considered as witchlings, but why exactly, since they didn’t practice magic? It was a bit strange. Perhaps, if played a tad bit differently, it would have made more sense.

The characters didn’t leave much of an impression. I may have liked them if I had gotten to know them more, see them act more often within the confines of the intrigue web spun in Demesne. Stephania, for instance, seemed like a cardboard feature (her mother was worse), but I could sense a drive underneath, and I would’ve appreciated seeing it for longer than I did. Giancarlo was really detestable, and Golia as well, yet they were too one-sided. As for Lucien, the protagonist, he had his likeable sides; however, he was often too self-centered, and I could never fully determine if he was really gifted or kind of an idiot; if he failed because othre people made him, or if he did because he would’ve failed anyway. I think I actually preferred Dino, who displayed more cunning (in a good way) and resources.

On the other hand, I quite liked the world itself, with its feeling of being completely isolated, and its origins that may be quite different from that of a traditional fantasy setting (if I read between the lines properly, that is). The secrets shrouding the King, and his pet project, were morbidly fascinating. I would definitely have wanted to know more about this world.

Yzabel / March 3, 2015

Review: The Originals: The Rise

The Originals: The Rise by Julie Plec

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

Family is power. The Original vampire family swore it to each other a thousand years ago. They pledged to remain together always and forever. But even when you’re immortal, promises are hard to keep.

Arriving in New Orleans in 1722, Original vampire siblings Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah Mikaelson believe they’ve escaped their dangerous past. But the city is lawless, a haven for witches and werewolves unwilling to share territory. The siblings are at their mercy…especially after Klaus meets the beautiful and mysterious Vivianne. Her impending marriage is key to ending the war between the supernatural factions and Klaus’s attraction to her could destroy the uneasy alliance. As Elijah works toward securing a piece of the city for his family, and Rebekah fights her unexpected feelings for a French captain, will Klaus’s volatile desires bring their world crashing down and tear them apart for good?

Review:

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

I have only watched a few episodes from the TV show, so I’m far from being an expert on the Mikaelson siblings and the kind of plots they get into in episodes. However, I’m not sure at all I found them here, nor that they were really interesting at all, in a more generic way. I kept thinking that they were, well, out of character—which was baffling, since I was under the impression that the people who worked on this novel were also those who worked on the series?

There was a lot of love in there, and of the insta-love, not very impressive kind. Rebekah, why not, as the series very early on showed that she was quick to develop interest for human guys. But in many other ways, she was so far from the badass girl I saw on screen. Neither could I find ruthless Klaus in the love-smitten dullard that ambled through the novel most of the time—and his reaction regarding Rebekah’s love interest was way too removed from what I would have expected (TV!Niklaus would never have had such a mellow reaction, let her do as she pleased so easily). Elijah was closest to his character, I think, with his desire and efforts to build a home for his family, and thus keep the latter together. I must not be the right audience for so much romance, especially when involving immortals, who I wouldn’t expect to develop feelings so quickly.

Mostly Elijah’s plot seemed to be the main one, with his siblings’ antics supposed to help (Rebekah recruiting an army) yet not helping much in the end, or just consisting in wooing a girl—at least the not-caring-about-what-others-do was somewhat Klaus-like, but that was all. (Also, why they absolutely had to remain in New Orleans, where they weren’t welcome, was a bit puzzling. But I guess finding another city would’ve demanded long days or weeks of travel, uncertainty as to what they’d find there, and having to delay finding a home at last… So, well, I could live with that.)

Speaking of plots and ways of moving it forward, I would also have expected vampires to be more cunning, more prepared. As mentioned at the beginning of my review, I haven’t watched many episodes; yet I remember Klaus’s plan regarding how to undermine Marcel’s influence, and… there wasn’t much of that here. These vampires seemed too naive, too easily surprised by other characters or events, too vulnerable, compared to the “Originals” I had been led to expect. This doesn’t fit with my idea of immortals.

In the end, my feelings about this book were mostly annoyance and boredom, and I couldn’t care less about what would happen to its characters (including the secondary ones, whose fates were so easy to guess anyway). I’ll stick to the TV series.

Yzabel / March 2, 2015

Review: A Darker Shade of Magic

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Kell is one of the last Travelers—rare magicians who choose a parallel universe to visit.

Grey London is dirty, boring, lacks magic, ruled by mad King George. Red London is where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London is ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne. People fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. Once there was Black London – but no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell smuggles for those willing to pay for even a glimpse of a world they’ll never see. This dangerous hobby sets him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She robs him, saves him from a dangerous enemy, then forces him to another world for her ‘proper adventure’.

But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive — trickier than they hoped.

Review:

Sometimes I pick books for the weirdest reasons. Like the colours on their covers: use the black/red/White combo, and odds are I’ll be interested. So when there’s a Black, White, Grey and Red *London* on top of it, count me twice interested. Not to mention travelling between worlds, magic, a feisty female thief, evil twin rulers, and did I say magic?

I can’t exactly remember why I had put A Darker Shade of Magic on my to-be-read list, months ago. But it was probably for all those reasons. And probably because I had really liked the other works of Victoria Schwab I read (Vicious and The Archived). Three time’s a charm? Well, yes. Definitely yes.

Even though you could say that the plot advertised on the blurb “only” starts around the 25% mark, what would have annoyed me in another novel didn’t in this one, because it allowed for enough room to place the context: after all, it’s not only about Lila robbing Kell, then saving his life, but also about the four Londons and travelling from one to the other. Those first hundred pages were not of the filler kind; they were useful, pleasant to read, and gave me to see the worlds Kell goes through on a regular basis. Without this background information, the importance of what he has to do later wouldn’t be as blatant. Without this, I wouldn’t have got to both love and hate the Dane twins (especially Astrid). Without this, I wouldn’t have appreciated Rhy, or dreamt about a London thriving with magic, while another, “duller” one existed somewhere else.

I loved the concepts developed in this series, plain and simple. Opening doors to other worlds. The mysterious, dangerous Black London, and how it became so. Magic drawn from elements, but also from the blood. The ambiguity of the >Antari, whose black eye can’t be just any old coincidence. The resentment born in the streets and the palace of White London, and for a good reason. Though some things turned out much different than what I had anticipated, they did so in ways that made them, in fact, better. Victoria Schwab definitely has a knack for creating interesting worlds.

Kell was pretty likeable. Somewhat too nice for his own good, but characters can’t all be selfish all the time—and he had his guilty little smuggling pleasure, kind of like an addiction. Granted, he got on my nerves sometimes, because of his tendency to lament what may or may not have been his plight (was he really a possession more than an adopted child, or not?). Fortunately, Lila put him back in his place, and this is one of the things I loved about her. She may have jumped into the “adventure” without thinking much at first, but not having much left to lose in her world, nor much to hope for, was this so surprising? She also wasn’t of the damsel in distress kind, displaying a ruthlessness that went well with her upbringing and the life she had led up until now. Lila won’t give you no bull, no Sir. She’ll draw her gun, however. Or steal a sword. Or slap our red-coated mage on the back of his head whe needed (both literally and figuratively, come to think of it). And there’s more to her than meet the eye. Literally as well here. Hee, hee.

While the novel wraps on an ending and not on a cliffhanger, a fair deal of mystery still surrounds the characters, paving the way to a sequel. There’s no way everything got told yet about the four Londons, about what will happen to them, about what Kell and Lila will do next, about their respective pasts (nope, author, I haven’t missed the little clues you dropped now and then). This is perhaps why ADSOM left me wanting, in a contradictory way: part of me wouldn’t have liked the plot to start later, yet another part would’ve happily gobbled down 100 or 200 more pages of daily activities or descriptions about Red London, Lila’s thefts in Grey London before she met Kell, or Astrid’s antics. And Holland probably deserves a book of his own, too.

In any case, count me in for the sequel, hands down.