The Y Logs

Yzabel / November 3, 2014

Review: The Book of Strange New Things

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter’s teachings—his Bible is their “book of strange new things.” But Peter is rattled when Bea’s letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea’s faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter.

Suddenly, a separation measured by an otherworldly distance, and defined both by one newly discovered world and another in a state of collapse, is threatened by an ever-widening gulf that is much less quantifiable. While Peter is reconciling the needs of his congregation with the desires of his strange employer, Bea is struggling for survival. Their trials lay bare a profound meditation on faith, love tested beyond endurance, and our responsibility to those closest to us.

Review:

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

At first I thought I’d rate this book higher: its beginning as well as premise were quite catchy, and I was fairly intrigued at what Peter, the main character, found on planet Oasis, as well as to what would happen with Beatrice, how they’d keep in contact, whether their relationship would hold, and so on.

There are very strong moments in it, especially when contrasting Peter’s privileged experience to Bea’s day-to-day life. (The fact that she lived in Great Britain, that the problems she mentioned happening there were connected to places and brands I do actually know, allowed me to connect more personally with her experience.)

However, two things turned to be a definite let-down for me. The first was insidious enough that I didn’t noticed it in the beginning, but it kept creeping back: regular allusions to other people in terms of skin colour and of characteristics that smacked of a certain… narrow-mindedness, to say the least. I don’t meab skin colour as simply descriptive, but as judgmental. For instance, a nurse from Guatemala is several times compared to an ape, and not in a shiny manner:

Nurse Flores spoke up again, her simian face unexpectedly illuminated with sharp intelligence.

(Other occurrences include her “monkey face” and “simian fingers”.)

I also found that gem, which I don’t even deem deserving any comment at this point:

She was heterosexual despite her butch appearance.

For a while, I wondered if this was part of a process regarding Peter’s character, as hints of his changing, but I’m not so sure, because it clearly didn’t fit with his acceptance of the Oasans, who were so much more different. Although at times he does come off as pretty judgmental—especially when women are concerned—and didn’t help to make me like him:

Her face betrayed no emotion, although her lips twitched once or twice. Maybe she wasn’t a strong reader, and was tempted to mouth the words?

Clearly no one would ever mouth a word while reading for any other reason than struggling with the text. And, once again, it’s about a woman.

Peter didn’t strike me as particularly likeable anyway

It didn’t matter, for the moment, that she misjudged him. She was overwhelmed, she was in distress, she needed help. Rightness or wrongness was not the point.

Yes, poor little misunderstood preacher, in his paradise light-years from Earth, with his mission of evangelising people who’ve been welcoming him with open arms, while his distressed wife struggles with worse problems and calls him on his bullshit—sorry, “misjudges” him. Not that Bea’s so much better, considering one thing she did in his back. And she has her prissy moments of I’m-so-much-better-than-you when she describes how her hospital “gets the dregs”, i.e. people who don’t have the means to get private health insurance.

So while I expected a story that’d show me the struggles of a couple trying to stay united despite the distance, and would focus as much on both parties, I got a bleak reminder about how human beings, even (especially?) the ones who preach love, can sometimes be the worst. Which, in itself, is actually brilliant writing. Just… not what I would’ve wanted to read, not now. And not with the constant lingering doubt: were those the characters‘ views, or the author‘s?

I was also not impressed with the ending: too open for such a story. Too many threads left loose. As if the author had become bored with his story, and decided to let it hang there.

Clearly there were beautiful moments in this novel, that can make you feel like you’re really “with the characters”, but the other problems kept distracting me so much that this read ended up being more tedious than pleasant.

Yzabel / October 30, 2014

Review: Broken Realms

Broken Realms by D.W. Moneypenny

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

Mara Lantern doesn’t believe in metaphysical powers and alternate realities. That’s about to change.

After a jetliner plunges into the Columbia River near Portland, Oregon, everyone survives. So why do crash investigators have a hangar full of bodies, one for each passenger except Mara? Before the plane goes down, she glimpses a new reality, one with scales and snouts, fangs and gills. She sees a boy running down the aisle carrying a ball of blue light, chased by a girl who could be her clone. By trying to help, she unwittingly unleashes dozens of creatures on an unsuspecting world and sparks a series of events that threatens her life, her family and everything she believes. To save them, she has to embrace a power she cannot comprehend.

Review:

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

I’ve debated again and again, whether I should give this book 1* or 2, so let’s say it’s a 1.5. I wouldn’t deem it as bad per se. In fact, it dealt with themes I’m usually fascinated with: parallel worlds, and manipulating the very fabric of reality. But it was just so long. It felt so long. It felt as if it picked up by the 75% mark, which was too late to muster much interest in me, and I’ll be honest: if I hadn’t got it through NetGalley, if I hadn’t considered myself as owing it a review (and a full read), I would havd stopped reading it days ago.

I loved the beginning: that scene in the plane, one set of people dying while another replaced them—raising from the start the question of “who is real?” Can we call people from Mara’s world “the real versions”, or are their “dopplegängers” just as real? It’s all in the eye of the beholder, and one soon comes to realise that things aren’t so easy. It’s not simply about sending people back to their original realms. It’s not only about the poor ones who died and were replaced by “evil” counterparts, because while some of those counterparts were indeed rotten, others were pretty decent people. And that’s the key word: people. In that regard, you can’t read this book with an all-or-nothing approach.

Unfortunately, the characters and the way they made their way through the story seemed off balance to me. There was a lot of talking, of explaining, something that was partly unavoidable (considering the theories behind the various worlds and how to affect them), but too often I caught myself thinking that the characters took their sweet time getting to actually tackling the problems. Again, I guess it was logical, in a way (for instance, convincing Mara of her powers in a snap of fingers would have been just… bad); only it happened in ways that made the story drag.

Maybe the premise of “every single passenger survived vs. every single passenger died”, something that really grabbed me in the blurb, would have deserved more spotlight (as it was, the ones who should have cared packed up the investigation pretty quickly—and I’m talking of several people here, not just a certain person). Maybe the plot would have called for more action on the main characters’ part (all the scenes at the repair shop didn’t strike me as particularly useful, and I suppose they contributed in dragging things down). At this point, it’s hard to tell, becaue everything’s got muddled in my head. I never found enough interest to read more than a few chapters at once, despite somewhat wanting to know where the plot was going.

There are intriguing things in this novel. Alas, I just couldn’t remain interested for very long, nor invested in the characters and their relationships.

Yzabel / October 23, 2014

Review: The Secrets of Life and Death

The Secrets of Life and Death by Rebecca Alexander

My rating: 3

Summary:

In modern day England, Professor Felix Guichard is called in to identify occult symbols found on the corpse of a young girl. His investigation brings him in contact with a mysterious woman, Jackdaw Hammond, who guards a monumental secret–She’s Dead. Or she would be, were it not for magic which has artificially extended her life. But someone else knows her secret. Someone very old and very powerful, who won’t rest until they’ve taken the magic that keeps her alive….
In Krakow in 1585, Dr John Dee, the Elizabethan Alchemist and Occultist, and his assistant Edward Kelley have been summoned by the King of Poland to save the life of his niece, the infamous Countess Elisabeth Bathory. But they soon realize that the only thing worse than the Countess’ malady, is the magic that might be able to save her…
As Jackdaw and Felix race to uncover the truth about the person hunting her, it becomes clear that the answers they seek can only be found in the ancient diary of John Dee’s assistant, Edward Kelley. Together they must solve a mystery centuries in the making, or die trying.

Review:

(I got a copy courtesy of Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.)

I should have read and reviewed this book sooner, but as things go, more and more book piled up. As usual, you might say.

The Secrets of Life and Death was an entertaining story, loosely based in part on the half-history, half-legend surrounding the infamous Elisabeth Bathory. It weaves two different narratives, the first one set in modern England, the second one focused on John Dee, told in first person by his assistant Edward Kelley. People who read my reviews should know by now that I’m usually partial to time/space shifts; I enjoyed those here, for they provided enough information while gradually bringing everything together, even though I’d have a few qualms regarding the last installments of Dee & Kelley’s adventure (in the end, I thought they tended to drag a little).

I also quite liked the modern part, two of its characters being “revenants” of sorts: people who should’ve died, but whose death could be foretold. As such, a witch managed to get to them just in time to place them within protective sigils, making them dependent on that magic to keep “surviving”, yet still providing them with what they call “borrowed time.” It’s probably not the most original concept ever, but it’s definitely not a rehashed take on “people coming back from the dead” either. Also, the magic described throughout the novel was intriguing and interesting: the revenants are weak in more than one way, unable to go far from their sigils, and the reasons to create them are both humane and rather selfish. That’s a greay enough area to my liking.

Two things I found fault with, though. The first was the romance, which felt stilted and forced. The attraction between Jack and Felix came too fast (which is why I won’t consider this a major spoiler), and developed in awkward ways. Understandable? Perhaps. However, in my typical way of perceiving things (in other word, “guys, there are more pressing matters of life and death to tackle here”), it didn’t register as absolutely necessary to the story. As for the second point, it’s more minor: I’d just would’ve liked more explanations about how Saraquel managed to speak to Edward (and here I’m not saying more, because that would be a spoiler).

3.5 stars nonetheless, and a story I’d easily recommend: not the best ever, but still worth reading to spend a good afternoon/evening.

Yzabel / October 19, 2014

No way this is OK

By now, everybody, their dog and their neighbours must’ve seen the crapstorm on Twitter, Goodreads and other networks, stemming from this article in the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/18/am-i-being-catfished-an-author-confronts-her-number-one-online-critic

I wish it were a hoax, or some PR stunt (in which case it’d be one done in very bad taste). Unfortunately, I suspect it’s not the case.

I’ve already expressed my opinion about it in a couple of tweets/comments, but I guess this is one of the issues I should blog about nonetheless, if only because the cries of “bullying” in the past months (the past couple of years?) have been growing to epic proportions, and a lot of people don’t seem to have the slightest idea anymore about what’s happening and/or what’s true and what’s fabricated.

TL;DR: reviewer posted 1-star review of book on GR. Author claims reviewer & friends harrassed her. Author then processed to track reviewer until uncovering her real ID, and showed up at her house.

I don’t know the original blogger. All I’ve been able to see were her Goodreads reading progress of the novel, not the review itself (deleted?). However, the only other side to the story is the author’s, and considering 1) the tone of the article and 2) the lack of clear proof, it’s also rather fishy. I can only recommend reading the whole article first to get a clear idea; the gloating undertones didn’t strike me as witty and humorous.

But one thing is clear for me: stalking is never OK. I don’t care what reviewers wrote, I don’t care how the author felt, I don’t care whether the reviewer’s friends went on the rampage, or whether the author’s friends did. It doesn’t matter. Simply put: fellow authors, you don’t track readers and show up on their doorstep to confront them. Seriously, who in their sane mind would consider THAT alright?

What kind of message does that send?

Random schmuck does the same thing, s/he likely gets a restraining order against him/herself. Author does it, she gets an article in the online Guardian and a pat on the back.
It’s OK to stalk a reviewer because you didn’t like what s/he wrote about your book.
Reviewers should always post with their real names (cf. the asinine Amazon petition endorsed by Anne Rice); if they don’t, it means there’s something shady going on, they have something to hide (hint: their privacy?), they’re only here for the trolling & bullying. (Authors, though, are totally allowed to use pen names.)

To which I answer:

Way to go, author who’s clearly in a position of power (access to media platform, publishing house, family connections). Way to prove that when you have fame and money (also when you’re going out with the son of Frank Rich, one of the most connected journalists in New York), stalking becomes OK. But the readers who leave less than 5-stars reviews are, of course, bullies hurt your feelings, so you’re entitled to follow them home. Not.
No, all other authors don’t agree with that. In fact, I’ve seen a bunch who’re clearly disgusted by such behaviour.
You don’t answer reviews. Repeat after me: YOU. DON’T. ANSWER. REVIEWS. Reviews are for readers, NOT for authors. Reviewers aren’t (y)our editors nor beta-readers. They’re not here to “help you improve”. They’re the ones at the end of the road, reading the final product. Not liking it is their right. Deal with it, or find another job.
You don’t make important decisions, nor discuss delicate matters when you’re drunk. (The author admitted it in her article. Granted, I admit when I’m drunk, too… but then I don’t proceed to stalk people either.)
When told not to engage trolls and bullies, DON’T ENGAGE TROLLS AND BULLIES. The first rule in such cases is “don’t feed the trolls”. I learnt that around year 2000 or so, possibly even before that. Surely other people can learn it as well.
Catfishing isn’t creating a pseudonym and posting some elements of your real life under that name. Catfishing is deliberately posing as someone else in order to lure the targetted person into a romantic/sexual relationship. Go check your facts, please.
So, such things happen, and we should post under our real names? Are you kidding me? (The present situation notwithstanding, people should never reveal too much about themselves on the internet anyway. That’s one basic rule of safety. I also learnt that back in 1997 or something.)
Go home, Guardian. You’re clearly drunk. What in Mordor ever possessed your editors to let that piece of garbage make the news? Didn’t anyone notice how wrong the whole thing was?

You might say, “it’s not OK either for reviewers to attack an author through his/her work, to be nasty towards the author just because”. And I totally agree with that! Cyber-bullying is real, even though I think the whole term’s been used more and more in the book-blogging world to cry wolf at any negative review, instead of labelling real bullying. However, this is a point fit for another discussion, not this one, for a very simple reason: it diverts the attention from the real problem, which is the stalking. Discussing the reviewer’s behaviour at this point would be akin to, say, asking a rape victim “don’t you think that you wearing a miniskirt attracted unwanted attention, and so, in a way, you were asking for it?” This is a case of victim-blaming, and it has to stop. The reviewer, in this case, doesn’t have to prove she didn’t attack the author. The author’s making the claims, so she has to prove them. That’s why you have to take screenshots, people. (That’s why I’ve added ‘shots of the Guardian article at the bottom of my post, by the way.) Demanding that the blogger comes up and sue the author is basically implying “if you don’t do it, it means you’re guilty of [trolling, whatever] and the author was right in stalking you”, which in itself is wrong. For what it’s worth, maybe the blogger is now scared. People don’t waltz into the limelight when they’re scared.

At the end of the day, all it takes is one more step on the slippery slope to turn “anxiety at a 1-star, trolling reviewer justifies stalking” into “anxiety at a 1-star reviewer justifies stalking”. What causes “grief” to an author is always highly subjective. I was once told that I wrote “digusting things that no normal human being would ever imagine”; I’m pretty sure that comment would have crushed someone else, while it just made me raise an eyebrow before I switched to another activity. What would the next step be? “If a review makes me feel bad, I’m justified in stalking the reviewer?” What if just any negative review makes me feel bad? Does it justify going on the warpath?

Maybe the reviewer behaved like shite. I don’t know, since the author didn’t provide clear proof (tweets, screenshots, etc.). The Goodreads reading progress on that specific book didn’t strike me as an attack against the author, just as comments about why the reviewer felt infuriated by what she was reading. Still, it doesn’t justify said author tracking information about the reader, calling at work, driving to her home, confronting her. (And finding Blythe’s behaviour strange: well, of course it must’ve been strange. If suddenly someone walked up to me, calling me by my real name to confront me about something I wrote online under a pseudonym, maybe I’d panic and start to deny in a frantic, suspicious way, because I’d realised someone tracked me and found my house, not because I’m a troll. When people feel threatened, there’s no way to say how they’ll react. They don’t always react in a logical, smart way.)

This whole thing is just so stupid, and I still can’t understand why the Guardian ever gave a platform to something like that. (Or, rather, I can, and it’s a shame.)

Screenshots of the article:

Yzabel / October 19, 2014

Review: The Schwarzschild Radius

The Schwarzschild Radius by Gustavo Florentin

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Rachel, an 18-year-old Columbia University student, descends into the netherworld of runaways and predators to find her sister, Olivia, who has suddenly disappeared.

After getting a job in a strip joint where Olivia worked, then doing private shows in the homes of rich clients, Rachel discovers that Olivia has been abducted by a killer who auctions the deaths of young girls in an eBay of agony.

When she finds Olivia, Rachel becomes the killer’s next target.

Review:

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

3.5 stars, veering towards a 4.

Very graphic in parts, and not shying away from dealing with the darkest recesses of the human soul. This might turn off some people, so if depictions of child pornography rings, sex slaves and peep-show practices are something a reader doesn’t want to read about, then better not pick up this novel. Personally, I found it fascinating in a trainwreck way: you can’t help but watch, even though it’s disgusting, and it makes you think about all those people, about depravity, about how low a human being can fall.

Rachel struck me as a resourceful young woman with guts, and overall smart enough to discover a lot on her own quickly enough to avoid falling down as well—because things seemed to move fast, and I have no doubt that once caught in such a spiral, every day spent in it would’ve made it harder and harder for her to go back, as well as to keep the peep show sessions and private parties to a “manageable” level. She was determined to find her sister at all costs; also, she cared about Achara, which was very humane. The one qualm I have with her is that the mistake that made everything speed up was, frankly, a pretty basic one, and I’m still wondering if she shouldn’t have been able to avoid it, considering how savvy she was overall. But I’m not sure either (even though, when the first tell-tale sign occurred, I immediately thought “something’s wrong here”), and I wouldn’t consider that as “too stupid to live” syndrome in any case.

The main female characters in general did what they could with what they had. It may not have been much, but when they had an opportunity to do something (try to escape, help each other, try to hurt the culprit…), they seized it. That it worked or not didn’t matter: they still tried, even though their trials were a very dire ones and they could’ve given up a long time ago. Each of them turned out strong in her own way, fighting until the end.

The plot itself moved at a fast enough pace, with a lot of suspense. Some events that appeared as strange actually made a lot of sense a couple of chapters later, and I liked how the author managed to “trap” me here the same way he did the characters. It was an interesting process to go through.

On the downside, I found the narrative a bit disjointed at times, as if it was trying to get faster to the next part, with the seams somewhat forgotten along the way. The writing style felt the same in a few places. Nothing terribly annoying, but still enough that I noticed it. I also wished it dealt more with Olivia’s actions: what exactly happened to make her go from volunteering to the underworld? (Obviously she was in for the money for a reason I won’t spoil, obviously she didn’t choose to be picked by the Webmaster, and was no doubt abducted, but while we’re given clear reasons about Rachel’s behaviour leading her exactly in the same situation—she was investigating and looking for her sister, after all—Olivia’s were more muddled. As if there was another, hiden reason that was never revealed. It may be a false impression on my part, only considering all the trouble Rachel went through, I definitely would’ve wanted to learn more.)

Yzabel / October 17, 2014

Review: Rebellion

Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution by Peter Ackroyd

My rating [rating=5]

Summary:

Peter Ackroyd has been praised as one of the greatest living chroniclers of Britain and its people. In Rebellion, he continues his dazzling account of the history of England, beginning the progress south of the Scottish king, James VI, who on the death of Elizabeth I became the first Stuart king of England, and ending with the deposition and flight into exile of his grandson, James II.

The Stuart monarchy brought together the two nations of England and Scotland into one realm, albeit a realm still marked by political divisions that echo to this day. More importantly, perhaps, the Stuart era was marked by the cruel depredations of civil war, and the killing of a king. Shrewd and opinionated, James I was eloquent on matters as diverse as theology, witchcraft, and the abuses of tobacco, but his attitude to the English parliament sowed the seeds of the division that would split the country during the reign of his hapless heir, Charles I. Ackroyd offers a brilliant, warts-and-all portrayal of Charles’s nemesis, Oliver Cromwell, Parliament’s great military leader and England’s only dictator, who began his career as a political liberator but ended it as much of a despot as “that man of blood,” the king he executed.

England’s turbulent seventeenth century is vividly laid out before us, but so too is the cultural and social life of the period, notable for its extraordinarily rich literature, including Shakespeare’s late masterpieces, Jacobean tragedy, the poetry of John Donne and Milton and Thomas Hobbes’s great philosophical treatise, Leviathan. In addition to its account of England’s royalty, Rebellion also gives us a very real sense of the lives of ordinary English men and women, lived out against a backdrop of constant disruption and uncertainty.

Review:

(I got an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I like to say that you can’t really go wrong with Peter Ackroyd, and it seems to be once again the case. Even though what I read of him years ago feels pretty far by now, I still stand by this opinion. The man has a knack to present historical elements in such a way that one just can’t help but come back to his books no matter what—at least, I can’t. I stopped counting how many times I put my tablet in Sleep mode, thinking “I should do something else/read all the other books that I should have reviewed long before this one”, yet kept opening the file again after half an hour or so.

Of course, I’ll also confess to a complete lack of impartiality when a book deals with the Civil Wars, since it’s one of my favourite periods of British history (the other one being the Victorian era, but let’s not go there for now).

What you won’t find here, obviously, is a very detailed account of every little event of the 17th century: there’s just not enough room for that, and I’m well aware of it. Rebellion is the third volume of “The History of England”, and as such, it deals with the period as a whole. (If I wanted to know how exactly the battle of Naseby went, I… Actually, I would open another book I own, detailing precisely that, down to the bullets found years later on the battlefield.)

What you’ll get here, however, is a solid account that can be read even if you’re not a History major. In a compelling style, the author manages to convey causes and consequences with definite clarity, and even some humour. Because, let’s be honest, this is a gem:

“At the end of the discussion Cromwell, in one of those fits of boisterousness or hysteria that punctuated his career, threw a cushion at one of the protagonists, Edmund Ludlow, before running downstairs; Ludlow pursued him, and in turn pummelled him with a cushion.”

Also:

“Cromwell now always carried a gun. In a riding accident, later in the year, the pistol fired in his pocket and the wound kept him in bed for three weeks.”

It gets to show that the historical figures we take for granted in terms of seriousness aren’t always so. But then, there’s no way now to forget about those assassination plots, right, since they pushed Cromwell to carry that gun?

The narrative (it reads like a narrative, not like something arid, for sure) is interspersed with such little anecdotes, as well as chapters about literature (Hobbes’ Leviathan, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress…), science (Isaac Newton…), and other daily life happenings, reflecting how people lived in the period.

In short, heartily recommended by yours truly.

Yzabel / October 15, 2014

Review: Upgraded

Upgraded by Neil Clarke

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

An anthology of original cyborg stories edited by a cyborg. Stronger. Better. Faster. We will rebuild you.

Review:

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

As usual with anthologies, always a tricky read to rate. Some of the stories I really enjoyed, others I found average, others yet were too far from my own tastes to hit home. Nothing unexpected here. All in all, there was only one story I really skipped/skimmed over, and a few that I struggled with at first, but ended up reading all the same, thinking “in the end it was somewhat worth it.”

Perhaps the theme of “cybernetics” is making things a little hard in that regard: either it works or it doesn’t, you won’t really find many other different themes to check for if it ends up not being your cup of tea. But that’s kind of a given, considering the anthology’s title and blurb.

A lot of the stories also toy with concepts questioning whether cybernetic enhancement would be a good or a bad thing: hopes crumbling, cyberntics leading to madness or violence, and so on. Those definitely open a path for deeper reflection here.

Stories I really liked:

* Seventh Sight: Part of my enjoyment probably stemmed of a personal fascination with tetrachromats, colours, and whatever is related to how we perceive the latter.

* Always the Harvest: This short story opens the anthology, and provides an interesting view on what defines “humans”, and on how a non-human conscience may interpret the image we project of ourselves.

* Wizard, Cabalist, Ascendant: A bit hard to grasp at first, but definitely interesting if one’s looking for reflections about transhumanism.

* The Regular: A more “typical” story, on the model of detective shows, which probably makes it easier to grasp.

A word of warning: a few stories made use of a second person point of view, which unfortunately is a serious break-it for me (frankly, apart of Choose Your Own Adventure books, it never works—and even in such cases, it has always tended to grate on my nerves). It doesn’t mean they’re rubbish, just that I can’t stand that point of view. Too bad, because Musée de l’Âme Seule has really touching moments (granted, it’s not 100% second person POV; but it felt like it too much to make me forget the constant “you”…).

Yzabel / October 13, 2014

Review: Soulless

Soulless by Amber Garr

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

When it comes to death and love…only one is guaranteed.

Four decades ago Nora died. A tragic event for someone so young; however, four decades ago Nora was also given a second chance to walk among the living.

A Death Warden with a mysterious past, her job is to escort the newly expired towards the light, battling with the Soul Hunters who want the freshly dead to help with their own evil purposes buried in the dark.

When Nora’s charges suddenly become targets, she realizes that the hunters are after far more than just souls. A shift in power between good and evil threatens to change everything, risking the lives of the only family Nora has ever known.

Devastated and angry, she’s forced to face the man she once loved – a man who chose darkness over her – in order to find the answers she needs to stop the horror from escalating. Yet, while a lost relationship still haunts her broken heart, a new Warden with secrets of his own will enter the mix and quickly alter everything Nora believed to be true.

Death is unavoidable…but sometimes, so is love.

Review:

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

Interesting premise and world (Death Wardens vs. Soul Hunters), but characters that turned out too difficult to stand, at least for me.

The story reads fast, and getting into it was quite easy. We’re quickly introduced to what being a Warden entails, and to what Soul Hunters do. Granted, their names kind of make it obvious; still, it’s good to see such things explained through active scenes, and not just in passing. Even though this could have become an info-dump, it didn’t (or if it did, not in a way that felt like I was having tons of information dumped on me).

However, I had the constant, nagging feeling that something was off. I suspected that the “something” was the characters. Some two thirds in, it just didn’t work anymore at all.

Nora is almost sixty: she died at eighteen, then spent fourty years as a Warden. Despite her long experience, though, she behaves like a teenager in more than one way, from moping about her mysterious death (understandable if it’s just happened, less interesting if it was ages ago) to letting her “hormones” lead the ball (she’s dead, by the way, so why would she still have hormones anyway?). That’s a specific pet peeve of mine, but I think it’s a justified one: when using characters that are older than they look, they must also act older, otherwise we might as well be shown a regular 18-year-old heroine.

While it seems that she’s going to be a leading character, the one with experience, compared to the younger one she has to teach, she actually becomes rather passive. Sure, she trains to fight. Sure, she’s given a charge of her own. Then she turns into the girl who has to be protected. You’d think that fourty years later, she wouldn’t need that so much. I wanted to see her actually teaching things to Jason; I got Jason jumping in front of her to save her.

Jason: nice character at first sight, a soldier who actually enlisted because he wanted to become a medic and thought he’d learn useful things in that regard in the army. Yet also a cliché (cowboy, ranch, manly man of manliness).

Then came the testosterone and jealousy contests. Apart from a couple of Elders, the few other female characters are, of course, girls who intend on seducing Jason:

A pretty, young girl with bright red hair and matching lips jumped forward. Her eagerness irritated me even though it shouldn’t. She stepped into the circle, eyeing Jason like a piece of chocolate cake with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Biting her bottom lip seductively, I rolled my eyes.

Ensue staring, dark glares, fighting in as revealing clothing as possible to grab the guy’s attention, and bodies getting too close to each other during training. Slut shaming wasn’t 100% in the open, but it definitely kept swimming under the surface. (Also dangling participles here and there, as you can see from the quote.)

This is one of those instances in which the romance clearly ruined the game for me. I’m not fond of love triangles in general, but that’s because they’re usually cliché, and tend to take over the actual plot. While the stakes could have been alluring here, after a while, it was very difficult for me to go past the typical “bad guy in black vs. manly soldier ex-cowboy”—complete with jealous, passive-aggressive domineering attitude:

He paused, something else balancing on the tip of his tongue. “Did you say Sani and Theron saved you?”
I shivered with the memory, and Jason held me tighter. His heavy arm felt like an iron clamp, gluing me to his side forever.

Guys, there’s a bigger problem looming on the horizon, and actually the horizon is getting very, very close because the book’s ending soon. Can we focus?

Add a bit of ain’t-telling-you-nothing (as in, some characters definitely know a lot more, yet refuse to spit the information out until, obviously, it’s much too late for that). I just don’t like that, since it creates an artificial delay in readers getting said information, while we all know we won’t get it anyway due to the character-rendered-unable-to-speak trope. (I swear, I can feel that one coming from miles away.)

In short: a good idea for a story, with themes that usually grab my interest (death, reapers), yet characters that grated on my nerves too much for me to enjoy it, and probably also a plot dealt with too quickly (there would have been more room for it without the girls competing over the guy, for sure). 1.5 stars.

Yzabel / October 11, 2014

Review: The Red Magician

The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

The Red Magician is the tale of Kicsi, a young girl in a backwoods Eastern European village in the early 1940’s, a hamlet so isolated that the villagers know nothing of the brewing war – have no hint of the future save for ominous dreams. Into this village comes Voros, a redheaded wanderer, a juggler and magician, to disrupt their lives and antagonize the local rabbi…with whom he must fight a cabbalistic duel to which Kicsi is a secret witness. Then the Nazis arrive, and the world changes. Kicsi is first imprisoned, then must journey with Voros back to what remains of her village, for a climactic battle between the old world and the new. The Red Magician is a notable work of Holocaust literature, a distinguished work of fiction, and a marvelously entertaining fantasy – as Philip K. Dick remarked upon its first publication, “nourishment for the mind and the soul.”

Review:

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

An interesting short story, though I must admit it wasn’t exactly what I expected, and I ended up not liking it as much as I hoped.

On the one hand, I could easily feel the magic permeating the atmosphere, the strange aura surrounding Vörös. Moreover, there’s a golem in the middle, and I’m often very, very partial towards golems (everybody has their favourite mythological/magical creature; well, this is mine).

I liked the theme of revenge and misdirected anger woven through the story. Though not original in itself, it hit home, and the book managed to show how sterile and blind revenge may be, yet also how born from genuine feelings: when your fear and grief for your loved ones are so strong, and when you can’t actually strike at the real culprits, what else can you do? Wouldn’t you turn to the next designated villain in your line of sight—even though he’s not a villain, even though he’s not responsible?

On the other hand, I found that the characters in general lacked substance. I didn’t really get to “feel” the presence of Kicsi’s family, for instance, nor of her potential fiancé, and so their fates seemed almost as secondary. I kept wondering why Vörös didn’t fill a more active role: he could probably have done a lot more (alright, at some point he was missing some of his tools… but there might have been a way to retrieve them), and instead kept going away. This didn’t really fit with his claims of having wanted to warn people, to the point where his worry and eagerness actually achieved the contrary.

The Holocaust part, too, felt rushed, and not exploited in a way that could have made the novel really striking. I sensed that more could’ve been done to it, because the author definitely seemed to have a knack to describe both the camps and the life before them in a peaceful community.

Conclusion: a likeable story, with powerful elements that may not have been exploited to their fullest potential.

Yzabel / October 10, 2014

Review: Jackaby

Jackaby by William Ritter

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Miss Rook, I am not an occultist,” Jackaby said. “I have a gift that allows me to see truth where others see the illusion–and there are many illusions. All the world’s a stage, as they say, and I seem to have the only seat in the house with a view behind the curtain.”

Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary–including the ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby’s assistant. On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the loose. The police are convinced it’s an ordinary villain, but Jackaby is certain it’s a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police–with the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane–deny.

Review:

(I received a copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I must say something, first, about those “X meets Y” comparisons: publishers, don’t do that. Please. Just don’t. Because while it makes you feel that it’s attracting more readers, the truth is that at least half the time, your people get it wrong, and it doesn’t do good to the book in the long run. Please let books rest on their own merits. Because this one has merits nonetheless, in spite of the misguided attempt to market it as something it isn’t really.

I found myself enjoying this novel for its humour:

“There’s a jar in my office marked ‘Bail.’ If you don’t hear from me by tonight, just bring it down to the Mason street Station, would you? I’m usually in the first or second cell.”

And how it wove supernatural elements (notably fairies) into its narrative. Although some of those occurrences were somewhat predictable, it was the kind of predictable that I wanted to see, that I expected, and that made me smile, not roll my eyes.

Abigail was an enjoyable narrator, somewhat passive at times, but more in a way that involved her getting used to her new situation—and then getting her voice and own wishes heard, rather than accept to remain in the background like a prim and proper lady. While she was a klutz at times, she also acknowledged it with humour, and struck me as a character with room to grow into a strong protagonist. She started off traveling after committing what one might deem a silly youthful mistake, but it’s a mistake I couldn’t really blame her for, because she made it wishing to take her life into her own hands, not remaining hidden behind petticoats.

Jackaby is a very quirky character, one that has a lot of strengths, especially when it comes to perceiving the unseen, the hidden world behind our world, and to act upon such knowledge… with a bit of wit he’s not aware of:

“I assure you, I am a consummate professional. I do not cast spells!”

Yet he isn’t perfect, and can definitely do with an assistant who’ll pay attention to more mundane things. I thought he and Abigail completed each other quite nicely in that regard—and, just as important to me, they weren’t thrown into some immediate romance subplot (I hope they’ll never be). Granted, there is a bit of a romantic interest in the novel, only directed towards another character, and without obfuscating the plot. In such a novel, it would just have damaged everything; I really appreciate that the romance trope wasn’t given more sway in here.

The mystery wasn’t too difficult to solve—I started suspecting who the culprit was early enough—but the dialogue lines, Abigail’s narrative and the secondary characters were interesting and pleasant to read about.