The Y Logs

Yzabel / June 21, 2019

Review: Unearthed

Unearthed by Amie Kaufman
My rating: [usr 2]

Blurb

When Earth intercepts a message from a long-extinct alien race, it seems like the solution the planet has been waiting for. The Undying’s advanced technology has the potential to undo environmental damage and turn lives around, and Gaia, their former home planet, is a treasure trove waiting to be uncovered.

For Jules Addison and his fellow scholars, the discovery of an alien culture offers unprecedented opportunity for study… as long as scavengers like Amelia Radcliffe don’t loot everything first. Mia and Jules’ different reasons for smuggling themselves onto Gaia put them immediately at odds, but after escaping a dangerous confrontation with other scavvers, they form a fragile alliance.

In order to penetrate the Undying temple and reach the tech and information hidden within, the two must decode the ancient race’s secrets and survive their traps. But the more they learn about the Undying, the more their presence in the temple seems to be part of a grand design that could spell the end of the human race…

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I struggled a little to get into this book, and I admit that I skimmed over a few parts, but in the end, while clearly not-mind blowing, it was entertaining enough.

The dynamics between Mia and Jules is, overall, one that worked well throughout the novel. They have their moments of snarky banter, they peel their layers gradually to each other (sometimes because external circumstances don’t really give them a chance, and sometimes voluntarily), and they get to really look at each other, past their completely different backgrounds. While Jules was introduced at first as perhaps completely lacking common sense—seen through Mia’s eyes, of course he would come across as some unprepared, pampered rich kid who had no clue what he set his feet into, he is actually more savvy than that; and, conversely, he soon learns to see past the ‘filthy scavver’, and see the actual human being behind the mask. Both are also less ‘gender-coded’ than one would expect, which I appreciated, and make use of skills such as linguistics and mathematics to get out of various pinches, which is always cool in my eyes.

The plot itself was OKish. I would’ve liked more details about the state Earth was in and the bigger plot—in terms of the science in the science fiction part, it wasn’t developed at all, and the portal bit felt like a hasty shortcut and let’s be done with it. The puzzles and exploring and spelunking in alien temples were interesting, yet I felt a little distanced from it all, as they demanded a fair share of description to become something easy to picture. The beginning and the ending were more exciting in that regard; the middle dragged. Probably would’ve dragged less without the romance. (Yes, there is a romantic relationship, of course. It’s a young adult story, so having a bit of romance is as much a surprise here as finding a Tube station in the heart of London. I don’t have much to say about it. My personal sense of priority is much more geared towards “more escaping the dangerous situations, less snogging and finding the other person hot”, and even as a teenager, romance left me cold. I’m not a good target audience for this.)

The story picked up again in the last third, and the reveal at the end was something I half-expected and somewhat hoped for, so that’s that. I’m not sure if I’ll be interested enough to read book 2, but maybe if it’s available at the library?

Yzabel / June 12, 2019

Review: Lifeformed 1: Cleo Makes Contact

Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact by Matt Mair Lowery
My rating: [usr 3.5]

Blurb:

In the wake of an alien invasion–and her father’s death–a young girl must leave behind the life she knows to fight for the future of Earth. Aided by a shapeshifting, rebel alien posing as her father, Cleo packs extra snacks for the road as they travel in search of both family and foe. Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact follows the unlikely pair as they bond, fight back, and ponder what it means to be human. The power of choice, courage, and unity are examined in this unforgettable debut work from creators Matt Mair Lowery and Cassie Anderson.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.]

This comic reads quickly: the story flows from page to page, and there’s no lagging behind. After the first few pages of Cleo’s life at school and with her father, with a short insight of what’s been happening behind the scenes, Invasion Day is here, and they both have to run for their lives. All the while, they to maintain a semblance of normalcy, such as when they find shelter at abandoned houses, living in the remnants of another family now gone or dead, or meet other survivors and have to make a quick choice between driving them away or being simply human and welcoming them.

The relationship between Cleo and Alex was a touching one. Very early on, it is obvious that her father won’t be who we met in the first chapter, and Cleo has to fight her distrust while not really having many other choices than either going with him or being all alone. Gradually, she learns to accept this new balance in her life, learn to follow at first, then fight a little, then fight more. And while she is obviously sad and has her small breaking points, she also keeps her smile and courage up, and doesn’t give up.

The downside of this fast pace is that it goes a little too quickly at times—especially when there are several panels without dialogues—and as a result, there isn’t that much room for character development. The latter is partly left to the reader to imagine, by filling in the blanks, but this is a somewhat uneventful process, and leaves a slight feeling of blankness at times.

Nevertheless, I did like this first volume, as well as its ending (both positive and at the same time highlighting the protagonists’ fight as “one against the world”, so to speak). 3 to 3.5 stars.

Yzabel / June 11, 2019

Review: The Chalk Man

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
My rating: [usr 1.5]

Blurb:

In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy little English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code; little chalk stick figures they leave for each other as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing will ever be the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he’s put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out his other friends got the same messages, they think it could be a prank … until one of them turns up dead. That’s when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

Review:

[I originally received a copy of this book through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review. It just took me ages to get to it.]

Kinda OK in terms of the storyline, but this is one of the books that felt “I’m going to like it” in the beginning, and in fact… Well, no.

The 1986 parts were more striking in my opinion than the 2016 ones, perhaps because of the whole dynamics involving kids living their last summer before leaving childhood and becoming teenagers, drifting off from each other… only not completely, never completely, because of that one last tie, that one thing they discovered together and that filled them with horror.

From there, I was hoping that the 2016 arc would see them get together and come to grips with the “evil from the past”, so to speak, but… let’s be honest, that didn’t happen, not really, apart from a few scenes with Ed meeting his chums at the bar or taking the train to have coffee once with another of his former friends. So, the 2016 narrative plodded its way along and wasn’t the thrilling ride I had expected.

The mystery part has a few turns and twists, with Eddie’s dreams/visions blurring the boundary; he may or may not be affected by the same illness that took away his father; or having had an actual hand in the misdeeds committed; and while these plot points were somewhat of the expected kind, they still worked at the moment they happened. Still, I found that the beginnings of plots threads that I found exciting fell flat in the end, and rested on clichés clearly present to elicit some sensationalism (the casket, the dog, the character who gets blamed and commits suicide, the coat at the bottom of the wardrobe, etc.). It may have worked in other circumstances, other stories. Not here.

I had a beef, too, with the issues that were tackled throughout the story. The abortion clinic part was accurate enough—all it takes it to look at the daily news right now to see that the same hypocrisy about the whole “pro-life” movement is here and strong as ever—but the question of abuse (sexual and otherwise) was frankly not dealt with well. There’s one assault in particular that just gets dismissed as “it wasn’t so bad”, and seriously, are we still on about this? It is ALWAYS bad. And it doesn’t only happen to girls, or to people who “look like they deserve” it, or whatever other crap the rape culture continuously feed us.

The ending didn’t work for me either. When the actual culprit is revealed, it just feels like it’s coming out of nowhere, and is quite unbelievable. The way it looked to me, there were all those threads about hidden horrors that suddenly needed coming together, and so were tied at the last moment into something that didn’t make that much sense.

(Also, I may be mistaken because I haven’t read these books in 25 years or so, but quite a few scenes were reminiscent of older King novels, and I couldn’t tell whether it was simple homage, or pretty much the same scenes in a different writing style.)

Yzabel / June 9, 2019

Review: The Warehouse

The Warehouse by Rob Hart
My rating: [usr 3.5]

Blurb:

Gun violence, climate change and unemployment have ravaged the United States beyond recognition.

Amidst the wreckage, an online retail giant named Cloud reigns supreme. Cloud brands itself not just as an online storefront, but as a global saviour. Yet, beneath the sunny exterior, lurks something far more sinister.

Paxton never thought he’d be working Security for the company that ruined his life, much less that he’d be moving into one of their sprawling live-work facilities. But compared to what’s left outside, perhaps Cloud isn’t so bad. Better still, through his work he meets Zinnia, who fills him with hope for their shared future.

Except that Zinnia is not what she seems. And Paxton, with his all-access security credentials, might just be her meal ticket.

As Paxton and Zinnia’s agendas place them on a collision course, they’re about to learn just how far the Cloud will go to make the world a better place.

To beat the system, you have to be inside it.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

In a not-so-distant-future America, where most of society has collapsed, Paxton and Zinnia get hired in the same Cloud facility, each for their own reasons. As they start seeing each other more and more, and confirm (more than realise, to be honest) that their jobs aren’t as shiny as the recruitment ads would let people think, their own deadlines loom over them: for Paxton, the visit of Cloud’s CEO; for Zinnia, her actual job, that is, finding out what really powers Cloud’s warehouses.

Not so much a thriller per se, although there is definitely an element of mystery when it comes to “what powers the Cloud facilities”, as well as a couple of other things. More than that, “The Warehouse” is part social commentary about corporate practices pushed to an extreme we may, in fact, not be so far of: living at your workplace, eating at your workplace, with your days governed by your employee rating, until the line between both tends to blur and losing your job doesn’t only mean “losing your financial means” but pretty much “losing your whole life” as well—there’s very little hope for any other kind of employment out there. Cloud is most obviously a future Amazon, but also Uber and all other workplaces where one is just but a cog in the machine—and just as replaceable—all the while being lured in by shiny promises of being a “valued employee”.

In terms of story, I enjoyed it general, but I admit I didn’t feel that much invested in the characters, perhaps because a lot of their interactions was coloured by the daily grind of their respective jobs, which made the pace slower than I would’ve liked it. I liked the couple of twists towards the end (I had already guessed who was Zinnia’s employer, though it’s always good to see one’s theory vindicated)—I was expecting maybe something a tad bit more gruesome, but what actually happened was still good. I was, however, left unsatisfied by the very end itself, I guess due to the way it dwindled down rather than stopping on a “high” (it was back to the grind, sort of, which was like going out with a whimper rather than with a bang). Fitting, in a way, considering the prospects of one’s life at Cloud; less fitting for me in terms of storytelling.

Conclusion: 3.5 stars. Enjoyable, but I think I was expecting more from it.

Yzabel / June 3, 2019

Review: The Broken Girls

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James
My rating: [usr 2]

Blurb:

Vermont, 1950. There’s a place for the girls whom no one wants–the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the too smart for their own good. It’s called Idlewild Hall. And in the small town where it’s located, there are rumors that the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their budding friendship blossoming–until one of them mysteriously disappears. . . .

Vermont, 2014. As much as she’s tried, journalist Fiona Sheridan cannot stop revisiting the events surrounding her older sister’s death. Twenty years ago, her body was found lying in the overgrown fields near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. And though her sister’s boyfriend was tried and convicted of murder, Fiona can’t shake the suspicion that something was never right about the case.

When Fiona discovers that Idlewild Hall is being restored by an anonymous benefactor, she decides to write a story about it. But a shocking discovery during the renovations will link the loss of her sister to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past–and a voice that won’t be silenced. . . .

Review:

[I originally got a copy through Edelweiss.]

“The Broken Girls” intertwines two storylines: that of four students at Idlewild Hall in 1950, and that, in 2014, of Fiona Sheridan, a journalist whose elder sister was found murdered twenty years ago—at Idlewild. As Fiona investigates the family who’s just bought the old school to refurbish it, haunted by what happened to her sister, the discovery of yet another body on these ground sends her into looking more and more into the past, and to unveil what happened to the girls.

The story was relatively gripping, but the 1950 part interested me much more, perhaps because reading about the girls and their friendship in a place where all the pupils were more or less rejected by their families: orphans with only remote relatives who didn’t want to bring them up, girls who witnessed something horrible, girls who were assaulted, or illegitimate daughters… Idlewild Hall had that reputation of “a school for girls who cause problems”, but a lot of those problems were the product of that time more than of the children themselves: people didn’t want to talk about the fruit of adultery, or about that girl who couldn’t speak after being traumatised, so they bundled them up to that boarding school to get rid of them. And through these different yet oddly similar stories, the bond that united the four friends developed into a really strong one, that was so easily felt throughout their chapters.

By contrast, Fiona’s story was more… conventional. A journalist with her relationships troubles, still trying to come up to grips with her sister’s murder, wanting to investigate the place of said murder, uncovering quite a few things that hadn’t been spoken of at the time… Not uninteresting per se, but not particularly exciting either.

In a way, I also felt that the 2014 arc tried to deal with too many things at the same time: was the murderer really the culprit, or was he set up; Deb’s murdered (almost every chapter); a ghost; corruption; the motives of the wealthy family who bought the Hall; tragic pasts dating back to World War II… Some of these weren’t fully exploited—the ghost subplot, for instance, felt like it was hovering between bona fide supernatural, and something with a completely mundane explanation, and in the end, the whole thing fell flat.

Conclusion: I would’ve liked this much more if it had been all about the girls in 1950, to be fair.

Yzabel / June 1, 2019

Review: Seeking the Truth

Through Lya’s Eyes – Volume 1 – Seeking the Truth by Carbone
My rating: [usr 3]

Blurb:

The day before her seventeenth birthday, Lya’s life changed forever. Hit by a speeding car and left for dead, she lost the use of her legs as well as some of her faith in the world… Lya learned to live again with the support of her parents. But having discovered that someone bought their silence, Lya is determined to unmask the perpetrator and obtain justice. Her search for the truth takes her to a famous law firm… and down a dangerous path. With the help of her friend Antoine, she’ll stop at nothing to get to the bottom of it all…

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A fairly good story about Lya, a young woman who’s been left a paraplegic after a hit-and-run when she was 17. Four years have passed, and she’s as decided as ever to find out what really happened: the person who hit her left her for dead and never alerted anyone, which meant she was discovered only hours later… a few hours that made all the difference between her getting her ability to walk back and remaining in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. So, her investigation and her motives are definitely understandable, and something that made me root for her.

I found the drawing style really beautiful, all in softness and subtlety (the black/dark line-art that’s very typical of comics is absent here), while also deftly making use of different colour palettes depending on the atmosphere it depicts, especially reds and blues.

The characters, in general, are engaging, even though they’re not necessarily very deep: Lya is brave and determined (not only to discover the truth, but also simply to live her life without letting her disability get in the way). Her best friend, Antoine, supports her all the way in both these endeavours, and helps her as best as he can. Adèle, the receptionist, is a bubbly young woman who immediately helps Lya get her marks at the practice. De Villegan, the lawyer, is antipathic and yells at his own intern, and looks like the perfect villain. There is room for more surprises in that regard, but their roles are quickly and easily defined, with the clichés this implies.

The investigation itself is not complex, as mostly what Lya needs it to read a file kept at the practice, but the story doesn’t shy away from limitations that an able-bodied person wouldn’t mean: the archives are only accessible by stairs, and so Lya has to be creative as to how she’s going to access them—getting discouraged and giving up is never an option for her. The downside for me was that while she encountered setbacks, I thought they were (too) easily circumvented, so there wasn’t so much tension to speak of here.

This first volume ends on a strong cliffhanger, and I guess this will be a make-it-or-break-it-deal for more than one person. This said, I did find it quite appropriate: if you’re going to have a cliffhanger, might as well have this one (and not one based on something else in the story).

Conclusion: 3 stars because all in all, I liked the story and the art, and want to read volume 2, but the pacing and tension could’ve been handled better.

Yzabel / May 29, 2019

Review: The Farm

The Farm by Joanne Ramos
My rating: [usr 2.5]

Blurb:

Life is a lucrative business, as long as you play by the rules…

Ambitious businesswoman Mae Yu runs Golden Oaks – a luxury retreat transforming the fertility industry. There, women get the very best of everything: organic meals, fitness trainers, daily massages and big money. Provided they dedicate themselves to producing the perfect baby. For someone else.

Jane is a young immigrant in search of a better future. Stuck living in a cramped dorm with her baby daughter and her shrewd aunt Ate, she sees an unmissable chance to change her life. But at what cost?

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

At some point, this book was touted as a dystopia and somewhat compared to “The Handmaid’s Tale”, at least in certain blurbs I saw back then, but lest readers approach it thinking they’re going into a dystopian read: it is not (and expecting it to be would probably do it disservice). Or, at least, it’s not more dystopian than the world we currently live in, where you can get everything anyway if you’re wealthy enough (including surrogate mothers).

The story follows four characters: Jane, a naïve Filipina-American girl who gets roped into becoming a “Host” at Golden Oaks (the “Farm” from the title); Ate, her shrewd cousin who is intent on making money in order to take care of her family back in the Philippines; Mae, the Golden Oaks’ director, banking on this new lucrative business to secure her end-of-year bonus; and Reagan, a “Premium Host” who’s been wooed by Mae to carry the child of a billionaire woman from China.

One thing is to be said about Golden Oaks, for starters: it is incredibly believable—if such a place doesn’t already exist somewhere, surely it will exist at some point? A golden prison whose “inmates” submitted themselves voluntarily in exchange for fat money incentives and bonuses, it has a lot of advantages (healthy food, exercise, massages… all in all, quite “privileged” surroundings), but also clearly plays a part in the kind of exploitation that is already going on, when it comes to people (especially of immigrant backgrounds) who can’t be choosers when it comes to jobs.

While it’s not a clear-cut dystopia, the world of “The Farm” nevertheless deals with contemporary problems that do have a whiff of dystopia, namely class and exploitation. Mae and her people (her clients included) go about this with a complete dichotomy of recruiting the Hosts by showing Golden Oaks as a sort of luxury retreat and their role as surrogates as meaningful and contributing to the good in the world… and at the same time, the Hosts are given numbers (not to their faces), and discussed in terms of class and backgrounds. This why Reagan, for instance, is a Premium Host and chosen to carry a very special baby: she’s white, from a clearly upper-middle-class family, she majored cum laude from Duke University, and she’s pretty to boot. Clients can subscribe to different “packages”, and a Reagan will always have more worth than a Jane. At some point, Mae and her boss even discuss introducing a new level, that of impoverished white women from blue-collar families, as a sort of “Premium-at-a-discount”. In itself, it is positively disgusting, and capitalism pushed to a very visible extreme, without any shame. The whole thing is all the more disturbing that Mae’s narrative makes it appear as somewhat sensible: of course, the Hosts are well-compensated—although differently depending on whether they’re Premium or not…

This said, there were a few things that seriously bothered me here:

– The story is told in the third person and in the present tense. I’m not too keen on whole books written this way. It was tolerable, but I can only stomach that much. Probably a case of “it’s not the book, it’s me”, though.

– Jane is clearly of this brand of people who continuously make the worst decisions and choose the worst course of action at the worst moment possible (acknowledged in the novel itself, as Reagan reflects upon this). It makes for plot twists, sure, and it plays into the how the book indeed denounces the exploitation of immigrants, who don’t necessarily know all the “rules” when it comes to becoming part of their host country. Yet at the same time, it made Jane rather worthy of several eye rolls, and also sends some sort of underlying message that, well, she’s so naïve and stupid, so surely it’s her fault for getting into such situations. I’m always on the fence with such characters. I do not want to play the victim blaming game, because that’s rubbish, but it’s not so easy either to find her endearing rather than annoying.

– I’m still not sure of where the story wanted to go. There’s a looming thread of vaguely impending doom through the narrative, as if something really sinister is lurking, but that “something”, in the end, doesn’t materialise, or not the way you would expect. Whatever happens is mostly the product of short-sightedness on the part of the people involved (yes, Mae as well): because they don’t communicate properly, or because they fail to realise that continuously giving incentives to people and then taking them away at the last moment is NOT a good way of ensuring things will go smoothly. The situation unfolding in the last third or so is the result of one huge misunderstanding, and considering the degree of monitoring at Golden Oaks and Mae’s suppose shrewdness, it’s like several people just forgot their brains somewhere at some point. (Ate and her friends are not immune to that either, by the way.)

So, “The Farm” had an important message, but that message wasn’t delivered efficiently through storytelling, which muddled it.

– The characters are rather one-dimensional. Jane is the naïve immigrant who is constantly exploited. Mae is the exploiter and that’s all. Reagan is the typical woke girl struggling with her privilege but not realising that the good she wants to do may just be tainted. Lisa is kinda the resident sex addict and gossipmonger. Apart from these, I’m still not sure who exactly they are.

– The ending was… abrupt? The epilogue dragged a little, while the actual resolution, right before it, pretty much happened behind closed doors.

Conclusion: A good theme to tackle, and chilling when you realise that the way it’s presented makes it appear “sensible” while still underlining its inhuman aspects, so as a reader, you’re never left off the hook in that regard. On the other hand, I found it fell flat, and I never really connected with the characters.

P.S. Regarding the aforementioned comparison with “The Handmaid’s Tale”: publishing houses should stop doing that, because more often than not, it makes me wonder if the people writing those “comparison blurbs” have actually read the book(s) involved. Mostly the common point here is “surrogate mothers”, but “The Farm” never gets to THT’s horrifying level. Let’s be clear here: that’s not a fault of the novel, which is still interesting in its own ways. But I feel such comparisons do harm, since more than just one reader will pick the book because of this comparison, and consequently be disappointed.

Yzabel / May 28, 2019

Review: The Way of All Flesh

The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry
My rating: [usr 2]

Blurb:

Edinburgh, 1847. Will Raven is a medical student, apprenticing for the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson. Sarah Fisher is Simpson’s housemaid, and has all of Raven’s intelligence but none of his privileges.

As bodies begin to appear across the Old Town, Raven and Sarah find themselves propelled headlong into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh’s underworld. And if either of them are to make it out alive, they will have to work together to find out who’s responsible for the gruesome deaths.

Review:

A novel that was more interesting for its historical research (anaesthetics, medicine and its practitioners) and its location (Edinburgh—yes, I’m biased) than for its actual mystery, to be honest.

So I really liked the setting, revisiting this city with a Victorian twist to boot, and looking for the Easter eggs laid here and there (Edinburgh was pretty famous when it came to medicine, and more than one name in the novel was an actual historical figure). With Will Raven and Dr Simpson being sent to attend several patients across town, including in less savoury areas, there was ample opportunity for some sightseeing along the way, and to get a glimpse of Edinburgh in the mid-19th century.

You can also tell that a lot of research was done when it came to anaesthesia and medicine in that era (one of the authors making up the Ambrose Parry pen name was actually inspired to write this novel by her research for her own thesis, and there is indeed a lot of information deserving to be exploited here). I never had any trouble picturing the various procedures, as gruesome as some were (surgery and amputations, ehhh), and to even read between the lines when a specific procedure erred on the side of euphemism due to its “unspeakable” nature.

The mystery itself, though, was less interesting, in that it unfolded at a slow pace while also being too obvious with its clues—I could sense the culprit coming already in the first half of the book. The characters are somewhat enjoyable, but get too mired down in their own backstories from the onest (Raven has a dark past and is also running away from his creditors, Sarah reflects every day upon her bleak prospects, Mina keeps lamenting about not having found a husband yet…): things that are in keeping with the era, especially regarding the role of women as “Angels of the Home”, but that also contribute to the slow pace until things are properly in place.

There are also quite a few cliché scenes that are worthy of an eye roll, notably the attempts at “romantic” situations—I counted three times when the characters are stuck in a tiny room/dive into an alley to avoid being seen, and are of course pressed against each other, and suddenly feel the need to kiss. Yeah, whatever. I’m no fan of romance in general, and these were very contrived means of pushing it that didn’t work at all.

Conclusion: Good for the historical background, less so for the mystery and characters.

Yzabel / May 22, 2019

Review: The Dark Net

The Dark Net by Benjamin Percy
My rating: [usr 2]

(To be fair, I actually got a review copy through Edelweiss, but didn’t get to the book at the time due to… probably too many other books to read. Story of my life.)

It’s a decent novel. It didn’t exactly deal with what the blurbs mentions. From the latter, you’d think it’s a techno-thriller involving the Deep Web, groups like Anonymous, the Silk Road, and so on. But the ‘Net, while playing a part, is not as much involved as more traditional urban fantasy/horror elements: ‘the Light’ vs. ‘the Dark’, an immortal who prolongs her body’s current life through blood transfusions, an ex-child evangelist now running a shelter by day and hunting monsters by night, demons…

I did like the way the Deep Net was involved: as a new turf for a war between Light and Dark, with means of action relying on people’s obsession with their smartphones, GPS, and connected technology in general. That was a good plot point. I also liked Hannah’s ‘Mirage’ apparatus, in the first chapter of the book, where it is hinted that thanks to it, she’s now able to see more than meet the eye.

The story is packed with action, the characters don’t really get a chance to rest, and even when they think they do, well, Evil never sleeps, right? As a result, though, it was also difficult to care much about them—so when there were dead people, I barely noticed them.

The more traditional horror/UF elements were also a slight let-down. As much as I like these in general, here, I felt that the technological angle took the back burner at times (one of the characters is actually a technophobe). Perhaps I resented the blurb misleading me more than I thought, too? I would’ve been more interested in a truly cyberpunk-cum-supernatural angle, rather than the contrary.

Yzabel / May 21, 2019

Review: Magic For Liars

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
My rating: [usr 3]

Blurb:

Ivy Gamble has never wanted to be magic. She is perfectly happy with her life—she has an almost-sustainable career as a private investigator, and an empty apartment, and a slight drinking problem. It’s a great life and she doesn’t wish she was like her estranged sister, the magically gifted professor Tabitha.

But when Ivy is hired to investigate the gruesome murder of a faculty member at Tabitha’s private academy, the stalwart detective starts to lose herself in the case, the life she could have had, and the answer to the mystery that seems just out of her reach.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A mystery where Ivy, a private investigator, has to address a potential murder in a magic school, where her own twin sister Tabitha is a teacher—her sister, who was gifted with magic, while herself wasn’t. That’s a recipe for disaster, or at least, for tense relationships and/or resentment.

And I enjoyed, indeed, the out-of-balance relationship between the two sisters, based on a lot of unsaid things, feelings and resent left to simmer for years, with each contending with a difficult event in a way that made the other sister believe they didn’t care, or not so much. Well, it was especially imbalanced when Ivy was concerned, since she was the one at home when the said event occurred, and had to live through it with the feeling that Tabby was too busy with her studies. But this long-festering resentment also came hand in hand with a wistful, half-buried, never fully admitted, desire for magic as well: Ivy telling herself she’s fine as she is, that she doesn’t want magic, can never really hide the regret that magic separated her from her twin. A good chunk of the story deals with this complicated relationship, as well as with Ivy wondering “what if” (what if she had been magic, too?), and seeing herself as the woman she never was, and that she probably wouldn’t have minded being. Along with her investigation, this leads her to spin more and more lies: some appearing as necessary, to throw the potential culprit off-balance while Ivy is fishing for clues, and some that are, let’s say, less justified, if not by her feelings.

On the other hand, there were times when Ivy came off as wallowing in self-pity a little too much for my liking, and when she became unsympathetic rather than touching. So the character development and relationships were interesting in general, though tedious at those times I mentioned.

The magic itself is not all stars and sparkles, and this makes it more interesting than neat spells and wand-waving. First, it can be pretty gross. Healing spells, for instance, are gruesome and difficult, and only the best mages can attempt them without killing themselves or their patient. And there’s also something twisted and petty to the way some of the students use their magic—one of the things Ivy reflect upon: they could do so much with it… but they’re still teenagers wrapped in their own drama, and so use it in a very self-centred and sometimes mean way.

The mystery part was where I think the novel wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been. The crime itself is one of magic (not a spoiler—you see the discovery of the body in the first chapter), and this, of course, throws additional difficulty in the path of our investigator, since she’s not familiar with spells and with what mages can or can’t do. Which is partly why she needs to do so much fishing. Yet at the same time, I felt that it lacked tension, that Ivy wasn’t as threatened as she could have been. And the clues were either something she stumbled upon (so not exactly screaming “investigation” here), or so subtle that they were really difficult for a reader to spot. Not to mention some parts of the ending. Some things were left unfinished, and while I do enjoy an open ending, here something was missing—some closure when it came to certain characters and facts, who/which were in fact sort of… brushed aside as “that was bad and they did a bad thing and oh it’s the end, bye.”

Conclusion: 3 to 3.5 stars? I quite liked this novel, but it’s a like” and not a “love” here.