The Y Logs

Yzabel / June 13, 2014

Review: Crushed (Soul Eaters 2)

My rating: [rating=5]

Summary:

Meda Melange has officially hung up her monstrous mantle and planted her feet firmly on the holy and righteous path of a Crusader-in-training. Or, at least, she’s willing to give it a shot. It helps that the Crusaders are the only thing standing between her and the demon hordes who want her dead.

The problem is, the only people less convinced than Meda of her new-found role as Good Girl are the very Crusaders she’s trying to join. So when a devilishly handsome half-demon boy offers escape, how’s a girl supposed to say “no?”

After all, everyone knows a good girl’s greatest weakness is a bad boy.

Review:

(I received an ARC of this novel through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

4.5 stars, rounded to 5 because this book did something other books seldom do: eliciting feelings in me.

You see, I’m a cold-hearted person. Not as in cruel and mean, but as in, someone who very seldom cries, who’s seldom moved by emotional scenes, and so on. The few things that make me reach such a state aren’t the usual kind of triggers; I don’t shed tears over characters dying, romantic scenes, happy-ever-after moments. In fact, it’s so random I couldn’t even explain what may or may not trigger a reaction, whatever reaction, in me.

Meda’s voice does. I don’t know how, I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s her acceptance that she’s bad, that something in her is utterly rotten (she’s half-demon, after all). Perhaps it’s the fact she doesn’t delude herself when it comes to being liked by others, or to the guy she may or may not fall in love with. Perhaps it’s how she feels she tries hard, but realises in the end that she should also have tried to understand others. She’s not perfect, she knows it, she’s not trying to be—just being “good enough” would already be a great step, but can someone who needs to ear souls ever be “good enough”? Her eating the souls of bad guys only could seem a rationalisation… or simply a fact: when the only other solution is starving yourself, how many of us would actually be “good enough” to do that? So she goes after bad guys—psychopathic killers, child molesters—and eat their souls, because it’s the least of two evils, yet while she jokes about being a super heroine, going about vigilante business, she still acknowledges that she’s part monster, and will always be.

She’s not perfect. She makes mistakes. She misunderstands people, people misunderstand her. But she learns. She accepts facts in the end, seeing them for what they were, for something she failed to notice. She owns up to her mistakes, tries to correct them, takes responsibility for her actions. And she’s also angry and frustrated, so much that I could feel her anger poring through the pages. I especially liked that contrary to a lot of teens in YA fiction, her reasons were both selfish (it was about “me, me, me” at first, in that she saw things from her side of the barrier only) and understandable: the bullying, people automatically disliking her at school because she’s a half-demon, the adults seemingly turning a blind eye on it, humiliating punishments that only furthered the bullying… She was under scrutiny because of her nature, but it felt as if she was expected to do better than any other “good” person in the world, while being set up for failure. (I don’t know, but if someone’s half-demon, expecting them to be Mother Teresa is kind of asking for them to fail, isn’t it?) Meda was self-centered and didn’t understand Jo’s attempts at warning her, at protecting her; however, I think a lot of people would’ve felt the same in her situation. And later, when she discovers the true reasons behind what happened, she accepts them, accepts that she has to understand.

Meda’s friendship with Jo: another beautiful thing in this story. They both have their own very special personalities, they’ve been through fire together, they don’t entirely trust each other, and paradoxically, the latter grounds their relationship into something deeper, stronger, because it holds one important promise: the day real trust is born, is the day their friendship knows no bounds. In the meantime, they’re kidn of circling each other, watching each other. It’s not a girly kind of friendship. They don’t bond over boys, over one common interest that may or may not last. But it runs deep, to the point of self-sacrifice… not only on Jo’s part (knowing her character, that must’ve been one hard thing to do for Jo, by the way).

And when a half-demon is led to self-sacrifice, this also tells you something about her, about whether her nature binds her so much, whether Armand is right in telling her Hell is the only place for her… or not. Meda knowing she’s a monster, and not refuting it, Meda teetering on the brink of that one important decision (join the demons or remain faithful to the Crusaders, even though they want her dead), are, in my opinion, what could make her achieve her own “goodness”: not a saintly one, but one that defies her origins.

Love interest: there is one, but not too much. Here, we don’t go through the “redeem the bad boy” trope, or starry-eyed love. While Meda and Armand are clearly attracted to each other, they also know that sooner or later, they may stand on different sides. Meda is aware she may have to kill him someday; indeed, no delusions here, and no glorious promises of Love Eternal either. They both hang out together for their own selfish reasons, they both say it openly, they both accept it in each other. It’s a really nice break from the usual teen romance I see in YA books nowadays.

Also, they kill. They go through with their murders, they don’t bail out at the last moment. Another nice break from all the “assassins who fail to kill” stories.

The Crusaders: horrible in many ways, justified in others. What they did to Meda, refusing to give her a say when it was time to test one specific kind of magic on her, was shocking; however, when Meda had a choice, the person who seemed so bad, so cruel at first turned out to be pretty decent—and he wasn’t the only one. It’s never sp black and white with them as you think it is.

The one qualm I have with this book is that it felt slow in the beginning, especially compared to the first novel in the series. Meda’s voice and what I could sense between the lines prevented this from being too much of a problem, but I was still glad when the pace picked up.

Yzabel / June 12, 2014

Review: Seven Kinds of Hell

Seven Kinds of Hell by Dana Cameron

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Archaeologist Zoe Miller has been running from a haunting secret her whole life. But when her cousin is abducted by a vicious Russian kidnapper, Zoe is left with only one option: to reveal herself.

Unknown to even her closest friends, Zoe is not entirely human. She’s a werewolf and a daughter of the “Fangborn,” a secretive race of werewolves, vampires, and oracles embroiled in an ancient war against evil.

To rescue her cousin, Zoe will be forced to renew family ties and pit her own supernatural abilities against the dark and nefarious foe. The hunt brings Zoe to the edge of her limits, and with the fate of humanity and the Fangborn in the balance, life will be decided by an artifact of world-ending power.

Zoe’s mission takes her and her friends across the globe on a frenetic quest for no less than Pandora’s Box.

Review:

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

Although this novel contained a few things I liked, I’m afraid it won’t leave me with a lasting impression, mostly because of the characters themselves.

I enjoyed the archaeological-related plot: ancient artifacts whose purpose isn’t known in the beginning, a “relic” (Pandora’s box) that I’ve seldom seen in urban fantasy and other contemporary books, travelling through Europe in search of clus, trying to find out sites to dig in (literally)… I’ve always had a soft sport for Indiana Jones-like stories, and for what it’s worth, I think the level of details in “Seven Kinds of Hell” was just the right amount for me: believable without turning into lessons. A real archaeologist might disagree, I don’t know; it’s not my area of expertise.

There’s a lot of action going on, too, and while I may not have wanted to read such a story in one of my most introspective periods, right now this kind of reading agrees with me. Someone looking for characters running away, fighting unknown enemies, finding unexpected allies in the middle of a fight, and so on, will likely appreciate this side of the novel.

On the other hand, the characters didn’t work for me. Zoe had her shortcomings and her good moments, like any proper character should, should I say, but I was extremely annoyed with her for a couple of decisions she made, that had catastrophic consequences. The guy who gets abducted? She led her enemies to him, instead of immediately leaving town, like her mother told her to do on her deathbed (and like she had done for most of her life). I could understand a “normal” person hesitating, trying to see her friends a last time. Someone used to doing that? Not so much. Then, later, a character dies, who wasn’t saved because Zoe missed a big time opportunity—somewhat understandable, considering the circumstances. Less understandable is how she basically ditched said character at some point, even though she knew something fishy was going on; if she hadn’t, I’m positive things would’ve turned out very differently. From the beginning, I had a hunch this poor person was here only to die, and unfortunately, I was right. Zoe’s decisions sometimes bordered on the Too Stupid To Live—or to allow other characters to live.

The secondary characters looked interesting, but I never got the feeling I “knew” them enough to really care, especially Ben and Ariana, who seemed to be dropped in there. (Gerry and Claudia “felt” like they had some kind of back story, at least.) As for the bad guys, they were the classic kind. No surprises here. I admit I rolled my eyes at the Russian villain.

The plot, mostly in the beginning, is slowed down by a few flashbacks. While not uninteresting per se, they distracted me, and enforced my “will you get out of town at last, Zoe?” reactions. I also found the ending a little too convenient to my liking, with Zoe getting help from someone she briefly met years ago. That person had reasons to act in such a way, but it still came out of the blue.

I have mixed opinions about the mythology. Fangborn society had a nice “we’ve been watching over you for ages” aspect, and I would’ve liked to know more about it, about its vampires that are more like shapeshifting snake-like creatures, about its oracles, too. On the downside, they seemed just a little too perfect and deluded sometimes, which mad them somewhat bland.

In the end, this novel held my attention mainly because of its “race for artifacts” side, but definitely not for its characters.

Yzabel / June 9, 2014

Review: Glitch

Glitch by Brenda Pandos

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

When a mysterious guy from the zombie zone sneaks an illegal slip of paper to a beautiful young girl from Brighton, she must decide if she should turn him in or follow what the note says in the first book of the Brighton Zombies Series, Glitch.

Eighteen-year-old Abigail has no trouble following Brighton’s rules. For one, she’s OCD about checking her Date of Death clock latched to her wrist, making sure her decisions never shorten her timeline, and two, she enjoys the peace Brighton has to offer. In no way would she bring on another attack that destroyed earth’s inhabitants like her predecessors did from their selfishness and greed. But when her best friend returns from her Advice Meeting–a glimpse into the future–shell shocked and won’t tell Abby what’s happened, she’s worried what awaits her. The stranger with blue-eyes knows something, but does Abby dare enter the zombie zone to get answers? Or is she doomed to live the life set for her?

Review:

(I received this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

It took me some time to get and remain in the story, and I have to admit that in the end, well, I didn’t like it. There were good ideas, and it started off as promising; however, after a while, everything became so disjointed that I wasn’t sure anymore what I was reading, and the abrupt ending/cliffhanger just left me “wait, whut?”.

The first thing I couldn’t wrap my mind around was the world itself. It contains lots of elements, and seems quite rich in terms of background to exploit, but the way it was introduced didn’t make much sense to me. We have zombies who may or may not exist; Sasquatches (half-human, half-animal?) whose origin is definitely unclear; and what I’m going to call a “pocket universe”, a.k.a. Brighton, without any information about the rest of the world. I admit I wouldn’t have been bothered so much if I had read this book some 3 years ago, but after so many dystopian stories revolving about the same theme, I can’t help now but always wonder: “Is this community the only one? What about others? Don’t they communicate? Do people really believe all that, and never question anything, even privately, in their own thoughts?” The Oracle part was also problematic: she’s introduced around the 25% mark, as something everybody seems to know (at least, the way Abby mentions her), but I can’t remember her existence being mentioned sooner, and this felt weird. Also, this:

“The EA wanted to purge blue eyes from future generations, saying they had a proclivity to disease and illness.”

Why? This begged for an explanation, and we never got it. This looks like a really important element, so important that the EA goes to such lengths as to, well, spay people who might give birth to children with blue eyes. Why? Are blue eyes linked to some special power? Is some blue-eyed person born in the future, so they’re trying to prevent his/her birth by removing blue eyes from the gene pool altogether? As it is, it just didn’t make sense.

Some pacing problems, too. The beginning was interesting. The middle lacked in excitement (discover people outside, travel to camp, life at camp). The third part contained many time-jumps, and those were terribly confusing. I’d like to chalk said confusion to my being tired, but I’m really not sure about that. I get there are different timelines, and that there’s a key moment in the past from which various futures are determined… or was the key moment sometime in the future, with a cure being found for something that happened in the present, yet it had to be brought to the past for the present to be “normal” again? The way things happened in that regard were, again, very confusing, and that part of the plot kept contradicting itself. I still have no idea how the person able to jump in time did it (claiming “I have no control”, yet always conveniently arriving at the exact moment they aimed for?), nor how her powers suddenly came out, nor how she managed to sort through all those timelines. She seemed to learn that in a snap of fingers, when it’s probably something anyone would need at least days of training to master—if only in their mind.

I didn’t really like any of the characters. Abby: has every male character pining after her, and of course she can’t decide (it’s insta-love but it isn’t, no, wait, it is); whiny, needy, then turning badass out of nowhere. Kaden: stop being the broody loner and TALK, because I tell you, this clears up misunderstandings in record time. Memphis: any person calling another “Sugar” from the beginning (or “babe”, “baby”, or whatever other “cutesy” name) makes me cringe—and the testosterone contest regarding who gets the girl gets tiring, pretty fast: I felt like smacking him every time he made moves such as sliding his arm around Abby’s waist in a possessive gesture. The community: girls are at the camp, doing laundry and cooking and washing the dishes, because everyone knows they can’t have any useful skills like hunting or patrolling, nor can any guy cook a meal. Decisions: everybody seems to act on a whim, sometimes out of character, and a lot of problems could have been avoided if they had just initiated basic communication, instead of puffing chests and trying to prove how manly they were. Reader not impressed here.

On the writing side: a couple of proofing problems (Complement/Compliment), that got corrected after a while, but were still annoying. Maybe they’re not in the printed copy anymore, though.

Although the next book is bound to hold answers, after such a cliffhanger, I’m not interested enough to pick it.

Yzabel / June 8, 2014

Review: The Lost

The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst

My rating: [rating=3]

(I received an ARC of this novel through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I tend to have a strong liking to such stories: mysterious little towns hiding all sorts of secrets; characters lost in them and trying to find their way, only to find out that something dark is lurking behind; and so on. I must say I was enthralled by the atmosphere in “The Lost”. The aforementioned small town felt creepy as hell, and its inhabitants’ reactions didn’t do anything to shake off that feeling, for sure. The mob that thinks Lauren is responsible for their new woes. The underlying desire to make her run away from the town, with the intent of resorting to more if this doesn’t work. Women planting dead flowers; characters going from cheerful and welcoming to crazy and threatening; a kid in a faded princess dress, cuteness all over her, a teddy bear under her arm, and a knife in her hand; the mysterious tenant of room 12 (will we ever know who he was?). Roads that lead to nowhere, or rather, always lead back to the same place. The desert and dust stormes encroaching more and more on Lost, giving a sense of mortality to a place that at first appears to be eternal. There’s something fascinating in such people and surroundings in my eyes, and I can never get tired of those.

As far as characters go, I especially liked Peter and Claire. Peter’s quotes weren’t innocent, and his antics could never completely hide the fact he was tired of his duties, and probably going half-crazy (if this fate of his wasn’t already achieved). Claire was both frightening and cute, a little girl wandering a decaying place in search for the family she had lost.

Other, more secondary characters’ stories also lent themselves to speculation. Considering what happened to Tiffany, did something similar happen to Victoria? Even when they realise what they’ve lost, can those people really come back to their older lives, or will the latter make them feel just as much at a loss in the end?

The novel also left me with theories that, though never debunked of confirmed, are however strongly hinted at. The ties between Lauren and the Missing Man, for instance. The lie Lauren cooked about his daughter might hit closer to home than she thinks…

However, I didn’t love this novel. I enjoyed reading it, and… that was all. I think I can chalk this off to three things:

1) The writing. For starters, first person present tense does it less and less for me, after having read so many books that use such narratives, and here, I really don’t think it fit that much, probably because of the “tense + short sentences” combination. Sometimes, it worked, but when descriptions were involved, it threw me out of my little bubble of creepy atmosphere:

I step over a soiled sweatshirt. There’s a wallet lying on the curb. I pick it up and flip it open to see a driver’s license and an array of credit cards. I’ll hand it in at the lobby.

I’m not asking for long, convoluted sentences; but while I got used to those after a while, it wasn’t enough for me to deem them enjoyable.

2) Lauren, in some ways. I just couldn’t warm up to this character. I understand her being disoriented and wanting to find a way home, but I wish she had stopped being a whiner much sooner.

3) The romance, which is somewhat part of point 2), felt weird and displaced. Lauren struck me as acting and reacting more like a teenager than an adult woman. I don’t know if I’m just a cold-hearted person, but poring over how beautiful the guy is when lost in a place where almost everyone wants you dead isn’t exactly my idea of “doing something constructive to get the hell out of here.”

In the shadows, he looks mysterious and perfect, also dangerous.
[…]
I look at him, his perfect chiseled face and his beautiful black eyes.

I’m still holding mixed feelings about the somewhat predictable development, because I find “this was just a dream/coma” tropes overdone. On the other hand, maybe this is more linked to my growing ability to spot tropes and imagine what the next step will be (I read a lot and have a paranoid imagination, too). Ambiguity permeates this new setting, sowing doubt in the character’s as well as the reader’s mind:

He’s perfect. Almost too perfect. He could be the fantasy man in a coma-induced world, and Peter could be real and waiting for me to wake up in Lost.

And the ending being left open as to Lauren’s fate puts the story back on its creepy, somewhat “magical” tracks.

I’d probably pick the next book in this series, to see what happens to Lauren.

Yzabel / June 4, 2014

Review: Destruction

Destruction: The December People, Book One by Sharon Bayliss

My rating:[rating=2]

Summary:

David Vandergraff wants to be a good man. He goes to church every Sunday, keeps his lawn trim and green, and loves his wife and kids more than anything.

Unfortunately, being a dark wizard isn’t a choice.

Eleven years ago, David’s secret second family went missing. When his two lost children are finally found, he learns they suffered years of unthinkable abuse. Ready to make things right, David brings the kids home even though it could mean losing the wife he can’t imagine living without.

Keeping his life together becomes harder when the new children claim to be dark wizards. David believes they use this fantasy to cope with their trauma. Until, David’s wife admits a secret of her own—she is a dark wizard too, as is David, and all of their children.

Now, David must parent two hurting children from a dark world he doesn’t understand and keep his family from falling apart. All while dealing with the realization that everyone he loves, including himself, may be evil.

Review:

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

2.5 stars. Some parts I really enjoyed, but some others were really problematic for me.

All in all, the plot itself is quite a “mundane” one—in that it could be a contemporary novel, without any need for magic in it. For years, David had a mistress, who bore him two children, then vanished from the surface of Earth. Twelve years later, he learns that she’s just died, and he takes custody of his children… without his wife and three other children knowing. On top of all, the kids born out of wedlock were abused by their stepfather. Instant recipe for drama. Just add water.

Now, because sorcery isn’t necessary to such a plot, doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. On the contrary. It lent an interesting spin to this story, because the “destruction” magic theme ran parallel to the destructive path on which the Vandergraff family was set, and opened up a can of questions. What would destroy them: their own nature as wizards and witches, or just their human nature, period? Would things have been the same without magic, would they have gone through the same pitfalls?

The author’s take on magic was one I found intriguing. Wizards/witches’ powers are attuned to seasons, with mages born in summer having the most “positive” magic, spring/autumn being more balanced, and winter mages having to contend with sorcery that always ends up destroying. The latter, as a theme, was bound to get my attention, because it’s something I find fascinating, and along the story, indeed, it appeared to fit my own belief system, so to speak. Winter mages are “doomed”, in that magic amounts to creating consequences, without any control on the causes… and the causes their spells give birth to are of the destructive kind. For instance, a spell meant for someone to “get money” could very well result in “character inherits a lot of money due to spouse dying” (and not by merely winning the lottery, or winning at the races, etc.). On the other hand, destruction-related powers aren’t bad per se: a skilled sorcerer could just as well use them to operate on people and destroy tumors, thus saving lives. I really liked that the magic system in this novel took such things into account, and didn’t only go with “destruction = bad”.

Another thing I liked was that no character was completely black or white. David cheated on his wife and chickened out on too many things (including telling her before picking up Xavier and Evangeline at the orphanage), but he also managed to display some bravery when it came to his family’s safety. Amanda was rightfully outraged, but also had secrets of her own, which didn’t exactly make her a saint. Jude and Emmy are their own shades of fucked-up, Xavier harbours knowledge that could destroy him (while still wanting to protect his sister), Evangeline can’t decide whether she loves her mother, or thinks she “deserved” what happened to her… And so on.

However, a couple of major problems (major for me, at least) prevented me from fully enjoying this novel. First of all, wizards are supposed to be rare (0.001% of the population?), but they keep attracting each other like there’s no tomorrow. This ended up in a cluster of mages gathered in the same place; even friends were wizards/witches. At some point, it became rather unbelievable—and I don’t mean in a general sense: I mean within the context and “rules” of the story.

Second, there were a lot of double standards, and I think I’d have liked to see them challenged some more. David does it, but only weakly. Mostly Amanda annoyed me in that regard, with her holier-than-thou attitude and her tendency to conveniently ignore what she had done, while giving guilt-trips to others. It’s part of the imperfect nature of this character, sure, but almost nobody called her on her bullshit. All right, David cheated on her and had two kids in her back, which is totally crass. But in the early days of their marriage, Amanda was the one who basically decided: “He’s had such a terrible childhood, so let’s erase his memories of that time. Oh, the spell sorta backlashed and he lost some other memories, too. Oops? But David, you’re a cheater and I want a divorce! You’re the bad, bad person here!” I’m aware this is very subjective on my part, but is cheating so much worse than removing someone’s choice, deciding for them, destroying parts of who they were? Of course, it fits perfectly within the scope of destruction magic. I just wish someone, anyone, would have smacked Amanda on the back of the head and told her to look at her own mistakes some more, instead of acting like Perfect Wife And Mother. Double-standards applied to magic as well: most of the “non-practitioners” in the story apparently spent years saying that their magic would have bad consequences and they’d better not practice… but they easily break their “vow”, while constantly blaming others who do the same. (At this point, you can tell that double standards in general annoy the hell out of me. Personal pet peeve here.)

Third, the abuse the kids suffered from: it may be in a second book, but it’s an important matter that I felt wasn’t addressed enough in this first novel. There’s Xavier and Evangeline, of course, but also Samantha, who gets raped by Jude, in Emmy’s room, and Emmy doesn’t say anything until 30 freaking hours have elapsed. The Vandergraffs sure are a dysfunctional family, but this was pushing things too far for a beginning, in my opinion. It looked as if the abuse was a side note, something that just happened, something about which even the victims didn’t care about; while I’m not for victim-mentality, nor for revelling in piles of angst, it nevertheless bothered me.

Fourth: the ending. I felt the same way as I felt with Twilight, i.e. cheated out of a “big finale”. I didn’t really get how Emmy went from what Jude did to “must do [that big thing that is going to be the climax of the story]”, and I definitely would have wanted to see how her that part went—not learning from her afterwards that this and that happened, and that another character saved the day. It was definitely weird and a little bit jarring. So much was already going on within the Vandergraff family, after all.

I think I would be interested in reading the next book, though, even though I didn’t give this one a stellar rating. There’s a lot of potential here when it comes to magic, as well as to redefined dynamics within the family.

Yzabel / June 2, 2014

Review: The Girl With All The Gifts

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

My rating: [rating=5]

Summary:

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her ‘our little genius’.

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

Review:

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

4.5 stars—to be honest, 3rd person present narration is something I don’t exactly like, and at times (mostly when I picked up the book again after something or other made me stop reading) it made it difficult to get back into it. However, I suspect in this case, it’s really a matter of personal preference, and every time the story pulled me back in in seconds, anyway.

There’s something both deeply disturbing and fascinating to this novel. At first sight, it looked like a “traditional” enough post-apocalyptic story, with humans surviving in locked-down places while looking for a way to go back to how the world used to be, or at least, find a way to keep strong and going. But as I went into the story, more and more little differences appeared. Maybe not that many, maybe not enough to warrant a giant “this is so different” label… yet still taking me gradually further from what I expected.

There’s a survival trek through zombie-infested territory. There’s a scientist doing research, hoping to find a vaccine. There’s the hard-boiled soldier and the rookie, protecting the group. There’s a civilian who wants to believe in something better. There’s the kid, Melanie, strange Melanie, so smart yet also so innocent, because she’s never seen the world outside of the classroom. This somewhat dysfunctional group is complemented by both strength and dysfunctionality within the characters themselves—though it’s hard to describe without walking into, well, spoiler-infested territory.

Caldwell is partly doing her research out of spite, the 25th scientist on a list of 24 “chosen ones” who were supposed to work to eradicate the plague; even though she’s dying, she keeps going on, wanting to understand, wanting her life to have a meaning, wanting to succeed where the others failed, and somehow “playing god” regarding her “specimens”. Justineau, who acts fiercely protective towards the kids in general, and Melanie more specifically, has a selfish reason of her own to do so, maybe to try and find absolution. Born in a shitty world, Kieran had a shitty childhood which he wanted to escape, yet never really managed to. Parks comes out as quite an asshole, but he’s seen his share of horrors, and his distrust of Melanie is understandable. As for Melanie herself, her innocence combines with an acute awareness of her own nature, and the world and people who’ve been shaping her don’t realise until it’s too late what her existence really means.

There are so many things I’d like to say about this novel; doing so, though, is likely to make me spoil another reader’s pleasure.

I liked the idea behind the “zombie plague”: not a virus, not a pathogen, but a fungus—it’s the first time I see this angle played in a story, at least. The science describing its behaviour seemed believable to me (I’m not a scientist, however, so I could be mistaken). Being a fungus, another aspect plays a part, on top of blood and bites: spores, and that was ended up being the most frightening, because can the surviving humans really escape such tiny particles? Avoiding zombie encounters, wearing armour, establishing secured aread: comparatively, this is easy. But spores? The whole concept also led to eerie descriptions that left me with a feeling of unease mixed with fascination: a silent city, its streets littered with corpses long decayed, out of which strange fungi sprouted, growing, growing, and who knew when they’d reach maturity, and start spreading those dreadly spores?…

The ending fascinated me as well, because of all it implied, all the unspoken outcomes it could lead to, all its ambiguity and imperfection. The hope it carries is a very twisted one, perhaps even a false one. (What follows is major spoiler material, so don’t click if you don’t want to know.)

This ending? Irony to the power of ten. Melanie has basically become Caldwell, drawing from the scientist’s example, shaping the world according to her own belief of what will be the best solution, engaging a procedure with no turning point, and using the hands of a dying man to do so. She has trapped Helen in a role she, herself, thought as a perfect existence: the kind teacher guiding the kids, the teacher whose lessons were always the best part of the week… but is this what Helen wanted and liked? Not so much. The specimen has become the dispassionate scientist, while the protector has become the prisoner. The base is gone. The men are gone. The children are a new form of life, but one that doesn’t lend itself to much hindsight yet, and even with guidance and teaching, who can tell whether they’ll succeeded in making a new world?

So, I loved this book. So much that I was willing to forgive its narration (something that might have broken another story for me). Unless zombie stories gross you out, I’d definitely recommend it.

Yzabel / June 2, 2014

Cover Reveal: How To Date Dead Guys

Upcoming July 15th: How To Date Dead Guys. For now, it’s time for cover reveal first and foremost:

How to Date Dead Guys on Goodreads

Cover Artist: Alexandria Thompson (click cover for larger view)

Description:

College sophomore Emma Roberts remembers her mother’s sage advice: “Don’t sleep around, don’t burp in public, and don’t tell anyone you see ghosts”. But when charming Mike Carlson drowns in the campus river under her watch, Emma’s sheltered life shatters.

Blamed for Mike’s death and haunted by nightmares, Emma turns to witchcraft and a mysterious Book of Shadows to bring him back. Under a Blood Moon, she lights candles, draws a pentacle on the campus bridge, and casts a spell. The invoked river rages up against her, but she escapes its fury. As she stumbles back to the dorm, a stranger drags himself from the water and follows her home. And he isn’t the only one.

Instead of raising Mike, Emma assists the others she stole back from the dead—a pre-med student who jumped off the bridge, a desperate victim determined to solve his own murder, and a frat boy Emma can’t stand…at first. More comfortable with the dead than the living, Emma delves deeper into the seductive Book of Shadows. Her powers grow, but witchcraft may not be enough to protect her against the vengeful river and the killers that feed it their victims.
Inspired by the controversial Smiley Face Murders, HOW TO DATE DEAD GUYS will ignite the secret powers hidden deep within each of us.

Yzabel / May 31, 2014

Review: California Bones

California Bones by Greg Van Eekhout

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian.

When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones.

Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief with a forged identity. Hiding amid the crowds in Los Angeles—the capital of the Kingdom of Southern California—Daniel is trying to go straight. But his crime-boss uncle has a heist he wants Daniel to perform: break into the Hierarch’s storehouse of magical artifacts and retrieve Sebastian’s sword, an object of untold power.

For this dangerous mission, Daniel will need a team he can rely on, so he brings in his closest friends from his years in the criminal world. There’s Moth, who can take a bullet and heal in mere minutes. Jo Alverado, illusionist. The multitalented Cassandra, Daniel’s ex. And, new to them all, the enigmatic, knowledgeable Emma, with her British accent and her own grudge against the powers-that-be. The stakes are high, and the stage is set for a showdown that might just break the magic that protects a long-corrupt regime.

Review:

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

3.5/4 stars, I can’t exactly decide, but let’s say 4, because I really liked the world depicted in this book.

Somewhere at the end of the 19th century, or in the early 20th century, California cut ties with the rest of the USA. North and South are now separate “kingdoms”, the southern one being giverned for a century by the mysterious Hierarch and his six closest associates. In itself, the back story behind this isn’t extremely developed, but for once, it didn’t matter for me, because the atmosphere permeating fascinated me, and in the end, I found this more important. (I tend to forgive such aspects in fantasy more than I do in dystopian stories, probably because of the magic factor: if there’s magic and supernatural beings, the world isn’t totally our own, and there’s more leeway for alternate history and various changes.)

I must say I loved the magic developed here: consuming bones from a creature allows a sorcerer (called osteomancer) to temporarily gain characteristics from said creature. The more is consumed, the stronger the magic, and some, like the main character, are so permeated with essence from such beings that they can call upon them at will, or almost. There’s something both gross and fascinating in this, similar to what gets my interest in stories where necromancy is concerned. Consuming bones is a large paved way leading straight to cannibalism: why wait until the creature is dead, after all? And, of course, why only consume animals? Readers who don’t like such themes will likely not feel at ease with what happens in this novel. I, well, I kept reading, wanting to know more about how this worked, about how far some people were ready to go.

The setting, the city, felt like a mix of strange glamour and disgusting practices, a combination that usually works for me. People living under delusions fuelled by the glamour magic of an old sorcerer named Disney, whose amusement parks keep visitors half-drugged with false beauty, and are one of society’s backbones. Lively markets full of conmen and thiefs, having to eke a living under the nose of the wealthy ones working for the “government”. Black market, osteomancy being both a tool of power and one that will get you hunted, because you never know when someone more powerful decides it’s time to consume more… substance. Though the descriptions weren’t very long, they were of a kind that made me able to easily picture the streets, the canals, all the places the characters went through, and to me, this world was a vivid one.

The heist itself is of the classic kind, so I’d say it depends on what a reader is looking for here. If one is familiar with such stories and has read a lot, it may not be surprising, and may even appear as predictable. However, if this is the formula one is looking for, for the sheer pleasure of seeing the heist being prepared and carried on, or if one hasn’t read/seen too many stories of that kind, it could be a very different experience.

I really liked this novel, but two caveats, still. First, while it was permeated with that morbid fascination born from osteomancy, I feel it could have been more developed when it came to some aspects. Quite a few times, I realised I wanted to know more, more, more. Some things I could infer, some others I never got an answer to. Second, the story rests on atmosphere, world-builging, and on the heist itself; in comparison, the characters’ motives weren’t always clear, and their personas sometimes seemed simplistic. Again, it probably depends on what one is looking for. I was looking for a heist and a strange kind of magic, not for very deep exploration of every single human psyche involved, but if I had been, I guess I would have liked the novel less than I did.

This is a rich world, in any case, and one that deserves being written about some more. If there’s to be a sequel, I’d definitely pick it.

(Note: there were a few typos here and there. Since this is an ARC and not a published copy, though, those will hopefully have been corrected by the time it hits the shelves.)

Yzabel / May 27, 2014

Review: Hexed

Hexed by Michelle Krys

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

A stolen book. A deadly plan. A destiny discovered.

If high school is all about social status, Indigo Blackwood has it made. Sure, her quirky mom owns an occult shop, and a nerd just won’t stop trying to be her friend, but Indie is a popular cheerleader with a football-star boyfriend and a social circle powerful enough to ruin everyone at school. Who wouldn’t want to be her?

Then a guy dies right before her eyes. And the dusty old family Bible her mom is freakishly possessive of is stolen. But when a frustratingly sexy stranger named Bishop enters Indie’s world, she learns that her destiny involves a lot more than pom-poms and parties. If she doesn’t get the Bible back, every witch on the planet will die. And that’s seriously bad news for Indie, because according to Bishop, she’s a witch too.

Suddenly forced into a centuries-old war between witches and sorcerers, Indie is about to uncover the many dark truths about her life—and a future unlike any she ever imagined on top of the cheer pyramid.

Review:

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

I really can’t say I enjoyed this book. It reads easily, and there were a few good ideas, and a particular twist that was clever (though extremely cruel, too), but mostly I found the characters bland at best, and the plot weighed down by the romance.

The good things:

* Cheerleader-turned-witch. I found this specific idea amusing, because it could have led to a lot of interesting situations. You expect the goth girl to turn witch. But the popular cheerleader, under everyone’s scrutiny, the one for whom the slightest faux-pas looks like committing social suicide? There’s some potential, I say.

* Witchcraft. I like witches. And magic. Simple as that.

* Bishop’s take on life: “Might as well joke, rather than dwell on the bad things and mope.” I like that.

But.

Indigo:

I had absolutely no sympathy for that character. I’d like to say I warmed up to her after a while, but at best, I must’ve felt some vaguely lukewarm sensation, somewhere in that thing people call heart. I found her incredibly self-centred, insensitive, callous, and condescending. She fancied herself a “decent” person, compared to Bianca, the jealous so-called best friend turned frenemy; however, to me, this was just one big delusion on her part. So she wasn’t a Bianca, but she was just as bad in many other ways, especially in the way she treated Paige. Paige, her neighbour who for years tried to be her friend; alas, poor Paige, you’ve always been too nerdy to Indie’s taste, and so she kept giving you the slip. Until, of course, Indie realised her friends weren’t friends, her boyfriend was a douche, and so she turned to Paige—with all the condescension she could muster, that is:

Paige shakes her head. “Where’s Bianca? Why isn’t she helping you?”
Oh. It’s like that now? You’d think the girl would recognize a bone when one was being thrown.

Except that Paige had started making other friends. The gall! The nerve! How dare you, Paige?

Tears prick my eyes. Of course she has a friend now. Of course she has plans. What did I think, that I could push and push her away and she’d always be there, waiting for me in case I ever got bored of Bianca?

At least she somewhat acknowledges it, but it’s going to take much more to make you a good girl, Indie.

Douches and doormats:

Bianca’s a douche. Stupid Boyfriend Is Stupid, I mean Devon, is a douche. When Indie finds him cheating on her with Bianca—that was so predictable, by the way—and finally stops looking at him as if he was the best thing in the world since cheesewire, Devon is devastated, because, you see:

“You still up for homecoming?”
[…]
Don’t mean to be pushy. I asked around, but everyone good already has a date now.”

Yeah, ditch the guy. At least that was one good decision.

I wish Paige had given her the finger, too. Looks like Paige’s the most decent one in the bunch, and with an ability to forgive. Only to be treated, I wouldn’t say like crap, but as expendable.

Jezebel, too. Way to let people die because you can’t be bothered saving just one more person when you have the upper hand, and are holding your enemy by the balls. If all witches are like her, I’m almost tempted to cheer on the bad guys instead.

Bishop… Not so much a douche, he was actually fairly decent, after a while. Nevertheless, the constant creepy-joker act slowed things down.

Decisions that make absolutely no sense:

Mum’s uber important Witch Bible has been stolen, and Indie promises she’s going to get it back. OK. She has no idea where to start looking. OK again. There was that shady guy, earlier, who helped her with her Mum after a bookshelf fell on her, and who seemed to know about the Bible… Hmmm, shady, all right, but at least it’s a lead: let’s drive around trying to find the guy, who anyway seems to have a knack to stalk Indigo. Might as well use the stalker’s skills against himself, right? So Indie drives around, with Paige in tow. They find the guy. And…
… Banter. Banter, semi-flirting, banter. Pointless dialogue. LOL-I-ain’t-telling-you-much. Followed by “well, let’s go to Jarrod’s party.” I thought retrieving the Bible from the bad guys’ hands was important. I must’ve been mistaken.
I might have forgiven it, if only it hadn’t been one blatant plot device, just for Indie to walk on Devon sleeping with Bianca and make her realise what an idiot Mr. Boyfriend was. Couldn’t this happen in a different way?

They drag Paige along when it comes to attacking the Bad Guys. Because bringing the human girl, the one without any powers, to a fight between witches and sorcerers is the best way to ensure her safety. It’s not like collateral damage could happen. It’s not like someone could notice her and, I don’t know, take her hostage later.

There’s also lot of wandering around, because they need a “quiet place” to talk. The Hollywood sign at night is sure a quiet place, but, again, wasn’t time of the essence?

And it may just be me, but I thought the Priory wasn’t so… active. It was quite nice of them to give Indigo one whole week to mourn her mother, but frankly, since they were the ones who took said mother hostage and then killed her, why waste time? Go hit Indie while she’s down.

Powers and training:

Well, yes, I’d have wanted to see more “witch in training”, more moments when Indigo would grow into her powers, do something with them. I wasn’t asking for anything spectacular, but she really doesn’t do much at all, and so she ends up as the whiny Damsel In Distress throughout the second part of the book.

Romance:

Not played well here in my opinion. I’ll appreciate a romance that develops… when characters have time for that. Here, the situation was kind of urgent, Indie could’ve been attacked at any moment, yet so much time was wasted on flirting and such. In turn, I felt that the plot was being held back in order for the romance to take place. The contrary would’ve been more interesting, and more believable.

So, well… I wish I had liked this one. I was really eager to read it. In the end, unfortunately, it just didn’t work at all for me.

Yzabel / May 26, 2014

Review: The Butcher

The Butcher by Jennifer Hillier

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

A rash of grisly serial murders plagued Seattle until the infamous “Beacon Hill Butcher” was finally hunted down and killed by police chief Edward Shank in 1985. Now, some thirty years later, Shank, retired and widowed, is giving up his large rambling Victorian house to his grandson Matt, whom he helped raise.

Settling back into his childhood home and doing some renovations in the backyard to make the house feel like his own, Matt, a young up-and-coming chef and restaurateur, stumbles upon a locked crate he’s never seen before. Curious, he picks the padlock and makes a discovery so gruesome it will forever haunt him… Faced with this deep dark family secret, Matt must decide whether to keep what he knows buried in the past, go to the police, or take matters into his own hands.

Meanwhile Matt’s girlfriend, Sam, has always suspected that her mother was murdered by the Beacon Hill Butcher—two years after the supposed Butcher was gunned down. As she pursues leads that will prove her right, Sam heads right into the path of Matt’s terrible secret.

A thriller with taut, fast-paced suspense, and twists around every corner, The Butcher will keep you guessing until the bitter, bloody end.

Review:

(I got an ARC through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. Quotes liable to change upon publishing.)

From now on, I’m going to maintain that this book was classified in the wrong genre.

Let’s be upfront: as a thriller, I’m giving it 2 stars, and that’s being kind. It didn’t keep me on the seat of my edge. It didn’t give me, well, the thrills. The mystery wasn’t so well-done, and rested upon a lot of coincidences, such as people stumbling upon others in the middle of a conversation. I see what the author did here: revealing who the killer is in the beginning (seriously, you know who it is in chapter 1), and stressing the “why”, “how” and “will they take the fallout” aspects, rather than the “whodunnit” one; I’m not sure it worked properly, though. It may have worked better for me if the characters had been deeper, psychologically-speaking; their psyches were touched upon, sure, but not enough to offset the fact that without a whodunnit, it wasn’t exactly the same. Readers looking for that may not find this book to their liking.

But as a work of dark, dark humour? As a dark, twisted comedy? 4 stars.

This novel took whatever disgusting things were in me and brought them to the light. At least, I think it did, since I found myself snickering and even laughing more than once. It’s like watching a trainwreck: you’re feeling horrible for doing so, but you can’t help keep staring. It was the same thing here.

Graphic, violent, sexualised killings. The male protagonist is a sociopath. The world revolves around himsel, and it’s the most natural thing, and don’t you dare act otherwise. He feels bad about someone dying, but not because the person died: because it might impact his success as a restaurateur and chef. The male deuteragonist is a psychopath with a steely, condescending opinion on people on general and women in particular. The girl tries to make sense of it all, the cops try to make sense of it all, to no avail. Other women get killed. And yet. Yet, it’s funny. If it was made into a movie, I’d place it along “Burn After Reading” on my shelf. Think “what the hell just happened here, and why are all those guys dead?” funny. Or: “Oh, so they found the corpses of the Bay Harbour Butcher’s victims… Wait, I’m the Butcher!” funny. If you snickered at Dexter trying to help the police catch the aforementioned Bay Harbour Butcher, fully knowing he’s trying to catch himself, and has to sabotage the whole thing so that he can escape—cue in mistakes he barely manages to cover—then, yes, this novel may be for you.

It was the same here.

In fact, “The Clusterfuck” would make a perfect alternate title for this novel.

What happens when you accidentally kill a guy, ask help from the one person whom you know is worse than you, and that person tells you to take the body out of the dumpster?

“Okay, I’ll try.” He took a deep breath and tried not to think about his aching back. “But my back really hurts—”
“Fuck your back,” Edward barked. “If you’re standing, it’s not broken. This is your ass on the line and right now tipping the goddamned dumpster is the only option we got. You want to get the body out or not?”
“Yes, Chief.”
“Then do what the fuck I say.”

Indeed, son. The garbage men will be here in four hours, so stuff cut the I-hurt-my-back whining. This is Bumbling Serial Killer 101 for you.

He knew they wouldn’t be able to save him. One hundred milligrams of Viagra combined with all the medications for his heart and blood pressure that he was already taking… the old guy didn’t stand a chance.

Retirement communities for active seniors? Oh, gee, everybody knows those are places where residents keep humping each other, and the nurses really aren’t surprised to find old guys overdosing on Viagra. Poisoned? The third death in two weeks? A killer? Here? Nah. It’s all Viagra’s fault.

I’ll let you imagine what happens when the girl, convinced that her boyfriend’s cheating on her, tries to catch him in the act.

So I laughed. And it was horrible, because people were dying in this novel, and the killer remained on the loose, unsuspected. Worse, everybody and their dog came to him for advice. Cosmic irony to the power of ten. Since the characters were not developed deep enough, it paradoxically put them in the roles of unwilling puppets, thrown into a series of coincidences, fuck-ups, and situations that make you facepalm because you just know how it’s going to end, and it’s going to suck for them, but you’re going to chuckle anyway. Horrible, horrible readers that we are.

As a real, serious thriller, I think this novel fails flat.

As dark, partly slapstick half-comedy, it works. I liked it. I did.

And I still think it should be marketed as so.