June 2015 - Page 2 of 2

Yzabel / June 7, 2015

Review: The Witch Hunter

The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

The magic and suspense of Graceling meet the political intrigue and unrest of Game of Thrones in this riveting fantasy debut.

Elizabeth Grey is one of the king’s best witch hunters, devoted to rooting out witchcraft and doling out justice. When she’s accused of being a witch herself, Elizabeth is arrested and sentenced to die at the stake. Salvation comes from a man she thought was her enemy. Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful wizard in the kingdom, offers her a deal: he will save her from execution if she can track down the person who laid a deadly curse on him.

As she’s thrust into the world of witches, ghosts, pirates, and all-too-handsome healers, Elizabeth is forced to redefine her ideas of right and wrong, of friends and enemies, and of love and hate.

Review:

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

Somewhat OK, but too full of holes (in terms of world-building) and too flat when it came to the characters. I had a hard time reconciling the setting to a parallel Tudor England (minus the Tudors), as some elements were similar, but others were too confusing to make much sense—including language, too modern at times. For instance, no witch hunter seemed to ever question the origin of their stigmas, how they came to be, when it was actually a pretty obvious question to ask (especially in a world that wasn’t heavy on religion, so “it comes from God” wouldn’t have made a satisfying answer).

Elizabeth in general was of the too stupid to live variety. Supposedly strong, supposedly a well-trained prodigy witch hunter, but piling up mistake upon mistake, for a reason that felt a little too weak to be believable (the way she mentioned it, it didn’t seem like she was going through hell, more that it was an inconvenience to her). The reason why she was caught was stupid, a mix of bad decisions (getting drunk because her friend who may or may not be her love interest was seeing someone else) and other bad decisions (what on Earth was she doing with those herbs in her pocket.

The romance I’ll put in the “inserted here for marketing reasons” category. Bland, not useful—becoming friends would have been enough—, a vague triangle that wasn’t really one because it was fairly predictable, and

Also, probably a minor quibble on my part, but this just happened to irk me: “Then I get an idea.” I counted at least four occurrences of it, all as one sentence that was a paragraph of its own, and it just struck me as repetitive and annoying.

There were interesting ideas and themes in the novel, and hooks that could’ve been so much more, when it came to politics and hypocrisy—laws defied by the ones making them, plotting in the shadows… However, I wouldn’t put this on a Game of Thrones level as the blurb claims it is, and it was too muddled overall to make for a terrific plot. Some fantasy books take too long and are too slow-paced to carry their plots properly; here, it would’ve been a good thing, as it would’ve given more meat to the story, and more room for the world-building to unfold.

1.5 stars, close to “it’s OK”, only I realise that I’m already not caring about it anymore barely half an hour after having finished it. I admit I just got to the end so that I could write my review and switch to another book.

Yzabel / June 5, 2015

Review: The Euthanist

The Euthanist by Alex Dolan

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:
They know her as Kali. She is there to see them off into the afterlife with kindness, with efficiency, and with two needles. She’s been a part of the right-to-die movement for years, an integral member, complicit in the deaths of twenty-seven men and women, all suffering from terminal illnesses. And she just helped the wrong patient.

Leland Moon has been with the Bureau for his entire career, but even as a respected agent, he was unable to keep his own son from being kidnapped on his way to school. When his boy finally came home, he told terrifying stories of his captors, and his nightmares haven’t stopped since.

Moon draws Kali into his mission, a mesmerizing cat-and-mouse game with two ruthless predators—one behind bars, one free—who hold the secrets that could bring comfort to the families of their victims. This powerful journey towards grace and towards peace will force both Leland and Kali to question everything they believe to be true and just.

Review:

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

One thing I’d like to say: blurbs, please stop spoiling the plot. Because, you see, when the main character learns of something only 50% in the book, and it’s presented as a reveal, the reader having known for so long somewhat deflates it. Which is too bad.

Overall, this was an interesting story, one that made me keep reading, but to be honest, I found the blurb was more exciting than what it turned out to be. I didn’t feel the urgency that much, and the two predators didn’t come off as so ruthless in the end: we know how dangerous they used to be because of what other characters and newspapers said about them, but since they’re not seen directly in action, their deeds appeared once removed, and the impact on me wasn’t the same. I didn’t feel the immediacy.

Mostly what I had a hard time with was Kali herself. While she’s strong in a physical way, the mistakes she made were those of an amateur, not expected from someone who’s been disguising herself and evading the law for years in order to give the good death to her clients. It’s as if she had never really contemplated the possibility of getting caught (contrary to her mentor, whom she knew had made preparations), and once caught, every decision was illogical: running to other people and thus endangering them, using her real name when pretending to be someone she wasn’t… In general: not being paranoid enough. Even I know that the first thing you do when on the run is to ditch your mobile phone, especially when you know you’ve remained unconscious for several hours with a manipulative bastard who could have made just any plans in order to follow you later.

Leland was infuriating, but in a way that still made me want to get to know him better, at least. He meant business, even though this involved lying and behaving harshly.

I did like the themes of trauma (due to kidnapping, more specifically) that the novel wove, the way different people reacted to it (one became sort of a recluse, another let her story out to exorcise her fears), and the person with a strong desire for revenge realised that this hadn’t to be the main goal. Leland’s second trade, while manipulative, of course, also allowed him to get an insight he probably hadn’t expected within a world that he seemed to see previously as black and white only.

I guess that makes it a 2.5 stars: there were definitely twists and turns that made me want to know what would come next–it is a page-turner–but the main character was just too annoying, and her mistakes kept distracting me.

Yzabel / June 2, 2015

Review: Uprooted

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Review:

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

This book had the edges of dark fairy tales, the ones in which the Happy Ever After only comes with sacrifices, tears and deaths. Agnieszka and her family have been living for as far as they can remember in the shadow of the Wood, a malevolent forest-entity with a will of its own, and in that of the Dragon, a powerful Wizard (not a real dragon) who comes to the village of Dvernik every ten years to take a young woman. While he always releases them in good health, covered in riches, and seemingly with no harm done, those girls are forever changed, to the point of never staying the village again. Of course, it’s not mystery here that the one who ends up being chosen isn’t the brave and beautiful Kasia, but the other girl, the one that nobody would have considered. (This was to be expected anyway, but having it given away in the blurb was still a bit annoying.)

There’s some romance in there, a kiss and a sex scene, and I admit I still don’t know what to make of those. Granted, the romance didn’t permeate everything, but there seems to be a consensus in too many stories that the guy has to be rude and challenging, and that if something happens, it’s because the girl was there in the first place. Sometimes it’s discreet enough not to leave a mark, and/or explained by the context; here, it was a tad bit too much on the “if you almost got raped, it’s because you stayed in your room instead of leaving” side. (Another book I read recently had a similar scene; however, at least there it was somewhat “justified” in that the characters would be under the influence of magic, and knew beforehand that they would be liable to lose control hence the warning. Though not so much better, it made at least sense.)

Another instance had a character say he’d announce his betrothal to Agnieszka, to which she was all “wait, what?”. Fortunately, it didn’t devolve in what I thought it would: good thing.

The world itself and the magic made up for those problems as far as I’m concerned. The plot was slow-building, and while I wished it’d go a little faster at times, it also allowed me to really discover the country where the girls lived, and to “feel” the Wood at my doorstep, so to speak. I also liked the spells: repetitive for some, I’m sure; interesting for me, because it was nice to try and pronounce them. (The world has a definite fairytale Poland/Russia feeling, reminiscent of some of the lesser known tales I used to read when I was a child.) Imagining their effects, imagining the clothes people wore, was easy. The inclusion of court politics later added a layer of complexity, with Agnieszka not being sure of who to trust, and with other, dark examples of what the enemy could do.

Kasia ended up playing more of a part than I expected, and I loved her for that. I would have liked to see more of her, get to know her more. She probably would’ve been as interesting as Agnieszka (I’m positive that she wouldn’t have spent so much time whining about her place in the Dragon’s tower). The friendship between those two young women was beautiful, too: they were both exposed to each other’s inner truth, to feelings each of them had secretly harbored, yet their bond and love for each other managed to survive and grow stronger, in spite of (or because?) that.

Agnieszka was somewhat annoying in the beginning, and a bit of the tomboy/as far as feminine as possible cliché. However, she “grew up” once she discovered what she could do, and decided to play her part while remaining herself, not giving in to peer pressure. She developed an inner strength and a courage of her own, instead of always admiring Kasia’s the way she did before the time came for the Dragon to choose, and she never relented in her decisions, even when the latter would involve getting in dangerous (but necessary) situations.

3.5 stars. I wasn’t awed by the romance, the “trigger” at some point made me really cringe, and the beginning and ending dragged a little. On the other hand, the world was really nice to read about, with an eastern fairytale approach that brought back a lot of memories; I liked how the main character progressed; and the Wood as an entity was fascinating, in all its twisted ways and convoluted schemes.