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Yzabel / May 27, 2016

Review: Fluence

Fluence: A Contemporary Dystopian Novel by Stephen Oram

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Amber is young and ambitious. Martin is burnt out by years of struggling. She cheats to get what she wants while he barely clings on to what he has.
It’s the week before the annual Pay Day when strata positions are decided by the controlling corporations. The social media feed is frenetic with people trying to boost their influence rating while those above the strata and those who’ve opted out pursue their own manipulative goals.
Set in a dystopian London, ‘Fluence’ is a story of aspiration and desperation and of power seen and unseen. It’s a story of control and consequence. It’s the story of the extremes to which Amber and Martin are prepared to go in these last ten thousand minutes before Pay Day.

Review:

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

This was quite a gripping, intriguing and also worrying dystopian story. Set in a not so future London, where the government has failed and corporations have taken over, it deals with a lot of themes that seem potentially “silly” at first, yet quickly make you wonder more and more about whether this is possible or not… whether we might be close to that already, or not.

Society in “Fluence” is divided into stratae: at the top, the Reds, kind of a nobility that takes care of its own; at the bottom, the violets, and even lower the whites (people who’ve opted out of the system for various reasons: disability, being overstressed because of the system, and so on). Both main characters, Amber and Martin, work for a branch meant to deal with requests by various people to become “white”, and the approach taken here is rather chilling, casting a crude light on various questions—money and budget cuts remain, unsurprisingly, weighing factors.

Originally a Violet, Amber managed to climb her way to Yellow a first time, but had to drop back to Green after her first (Orange) husband died. Obsessed by the idea of going back to yellow status, she spends her day acting a role, going out to parties and events she chooses depending on how many “points” they’ll earn her, and updating her personal feed so that people will vote for her—basically Facebook-like social networking pushed to the extreme, and let’s be honest: isn’t that a bit the case already for us today? Couldn’t we easily veer towards a similar system at some point?

Meanwhile, Martin is her polar opposite: older, tired of struggling to keep his place at Green level, but feeling forced to it because he wants his family to be happy. His own issues include his growing difficulty to perform well in his job, understanding the points/Fluence game, and his son, not legally adult yet, who’s living on the fringe of society and doing shady deals with shady people.

While a bit rough in places, this story was highly entertaining, with more than just one twist that at some point seriously makes you start questioning what you’re reading: who’s manipulating who, who’s betraying who, who’s threatening this or that character, who’s a real friend or only acting the part to earh yet more points… All this is both somewhat grotesque (the bulimia shows, the obscene parties…) and frighteningly believable (our obsession with ranking, performing well, being under constant scrutiny…). And even though the plot could’ve been a bit tighter and better defined, in the end it didn’t matter that much to me, as I still enjoyed the various scenes and situations the characters went through.

3.5 to 4 stars.

Yzabel / May 26, 2016

Review: The Fireman

The Fireman by Joe Hill

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.

Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.

In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.

Review:

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

I don’t really know what happened. I guess for now, I’m not with the majority of readers? I thought I’d enjoy this novel much more than I did, and… well, I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t care much about it either. The fact it took me one month to finish it, even though it’s not a complicated book (we’re not talking hard non-fiction university topics here), is proof enough, I guess?

The basic idea was good. Although I found the science behind the Dragonscale is a bit wishy-washy, in itself, it could have worked if the plot had been more… enthralling? It started well enough, with a potential (and loathsome) antagonist almost straight off the bat, and a main character, Harper, who’s a bit of a pushover, but with room to evolve and overall positive features. The story introduced harsh themes, too: for instance, Harper and Jakob had that “contract” that if they were to get infected, they’d die together peacefully, before the Dragonscale burnt them to a crips like it did for all the other infected people. Except that Harper finds out she’s pregnant and infected almost at the same time, and suddenly the choice isn’t so easy anymore—she wants to live, for herself as much as for the baby. Jakob doesn’t agree so much, and that’s where the first batch of crap hits the fan.

The story follows Harper during her pregnancy, as she tries to figure out how to go on, how to survive, who she can entrust her child with once they’re born… As her path crosses with that of the Fireman’s, she finds herself involved with other infected people, and realises that there’s so much more to Dragonscale than meet the eye…

…And from then on, my interested gradually dwindled. I’m not so sure how to explain that. I think it was a mix of events unfolding too slowly (considering the apocalyptic setting), combined with somewhat long-winded writing, characters that remained more one-dimensional, and elements I’m didn’t particularly cared about. Mostly:

– Harper has this thing with Mary Poppins, staying positive, etc. and in the end, even though she was relatively resourceful in general, there wasn’t that much more to her. Father Storey is a nice and probably too naïve man and… that’s all. The Fireman is supposed to be a larger than life figure, but he doesn’t do that much, all things considered, and his influence on the story wasn’t as exciting as the blurb led me to think. The “slightly crazy cult leader” character is just that. Jakob remains just loathsome when he could’ve been a terrifying figure. And so on.

– The cult/camp is a hit-or-miss element for me. I’ve always thought there was something fascinating—well, fascinating like a train-wreck—in those communities centered around one or two leader characters, with everybody foollowing blindly and outsiders/dissenters being shunned, castigated, thrown out, etc. But it just didn’t work so well for me here.

– At times the characters spent too much time debating and discussing instead of being proactive. It was a bit boring.

– The collapse of society itself didn’t always make much sense. Some places have electricity when it’s supposed to be gone and there’s not that much of an explanation. Or cell phones: months later the network’s still up. There was an annoying dichotoomy between the apparent collapse and sudden elements turning out to be working perfectly well when you wouldn’t expect them to anymore.

– I also had a hard time with chapters regularly ending in foreshadowing. As in: “But the CDC team never got to look at it, because by the time August rolled around Portsmouth Hospital was a hollowed-out chimney, gutted by fire, and Dr. Ryall was dead, along with Albert Holmes, Nurse Lean, and over five hundred patients.” (That’s in an early chapter, not too much oof a spoiler, by the way.) So, sure, it’s an apocaplytpic/post-apocalyptic setting, and you do expect people to die and things to go bad… doesn’t mean I want it to be spelled out every time before it happens. Even though I know nothing good will last, I still want to be surprised as to what bad things will happen.

Conclusion: As said, good ideas, especially the way the ‘Scale behaved once one tried to understand how it really worked, but the plot, pacing and characters didn’t made much of an impression on me.

Yzabel / April 13, 2016

Review: The Star-Touched Queen

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Cursed with a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, sixteen-year-old Maya has only earned the scorn and fear of her father’s kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her world is upheaved when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. But when her wedding takes a fatal turn, Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Yet neither roles are what she expected. As Akaran’s queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar’s wife, she finds friendship and warmth.

But Akaran has its own secrets – thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Beneath Akaran’s magic, Maya begins to suspect her life is in danger. When she ignores Amar’s plea for patience, her discoveries put more than new love at risk – it threatens the balance of all realms, human and Otherworldly.

Now, Maya must confront a secret that spans reincarnated lives and fight her way through the dangerous underbelly of the Otherworld if she wants to protect the people she loves.

Review:

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

A story reminiscent of several “seeking one’s beloved in another world” tales and myths, with an Indian twist and the including of reincarnation. This led to an interesting shift in balance, as both main characters sought each other, first Amar seeking, then Maya searching for Amar.

Amar is, obviously, the Mysterious Stranger of the tale: tall, dark and handsome, with love in his eyes and words but secrets that he cannot reveal before a certain event is past. In a way, his choosing Maya was akin to insta-love, which I usually don’t like; here, it fit within the reincarnation theme permeating the novel, so at least there was *that* explanation. Not the best or the most original, but eh, it worked, and it was logical in that specific setting. Also, it helps that he was a pretty decent person overall: with a dash of “unnerving mysterious love interest”, yet never falling into the dominant-jerk template so many male love interests in YA seem to be created with. Although the mystery about who he truly was may have made him look at times a bit too “controlling” (in keeping information to himself) in spite of his claims of wanting Maya to rule as his equal. There are explanations to this secrecy later, tied into the supernatural/mythological background.

Maya was a good character to follow, in that she’s born under a bad horoscope, has been shunned in many ways from birth in spite of being a princess, yet isn’t complaining all the time. She may be petty with her tutors so that she can spy on her father (and learn the ropes of true leadership), resent the harem wives, but she didn’t strike me as someone with a terribly negative, depressed view of life. She tried to remain stoic when faced with a dire choice with dire consequences, but kept looking for chances to grab a “third choice” (escape) when she could.

I admit I didn’t like her too much when she made *the* choice mid-novel, though. I felt it wasn’t exactly justified, prompted only by a few lies and one bit of conversation. It would’ve made more sense if Maya had been confronted to similar occurrences more than just a couple of times.

The prose was mostly flowing, with really vivid descriptions at times, conveying beautiful images of enchanted, preternatural lands where legendary beings dwellt as if this was the most normal thing in the world. And I think this was a strong point: the book didn’t explain much about those beings, didn’t justify their existence… but it was totally OK, because it managed to show them as part of the natural order, as unquestionable. It made sense, completely, and no explanation was actually needed.

On the other hand, in a “it’s not you, book, it’s me” fashion, I sometimes found it difficult to remain invested in the story. Perhaps it was the rhythm, or the descriptions? (I can appreciate beautiful descriptions, yet still want more action/dialogues; it’s a bit paradoxical, I know.) I don’t think it’s any fault of the novel itself, just a bad reading timing on my part.

I would also have liked seeing more of Nritti’s reasons for acting the way she did. I understand what prompted her to choose that path, however there was a bit of a discrepancy between her first appearance and the others, as well as some shadows on how exactly she followed “that path”.

A solid 3.5 stars (3 on Goodreads, 4 on other platforms, depending on the rating system)—and someone who likes descriptions more than I do may in fact rate it higher.

Yzabel / April 8, 2016

Review: An Unattractive Vampire

An Unattractive Vampire by Jim McDoniel

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Jim McDoniel’s debut novel, An Unattractive Vampire, is a darkly comic urban fantasy of ancient horrors in suburban cities. After three centuries trapped underground, thousand-year-old Yulric Bile—also known as the Curséd One, the Devil’s Apprentice, He Who Worships the Slumbering Horrors—awakens only to find that no one believes he is a vampire. Apparently he’s just too ugly—modern vampires, he soon discovers, are pretty, weak, and, most disturbing of all, good. Determined to reestablish his bloodstained reign, Yulric sets out to correct this disgusting turn of events or, at the very least, murder the person responsible. With the help of pert vampire-wannabe Amanda; Simon, the eight-year-old reincarnation of his greatest foe; and a cadre of ancient and ugly horrors, Yulric prepares to battle the glamorous undead. But who will win the right to determine, once and for all, what it truly means to be a vampire?

Review:

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

A fun read, even though in the end I didn’t find it the laugh-fest I had expected.

This is for all of us who like their vampire stories, but don’t necessarily want to read about a sanitised, mainstream, “fangless” version of vampires, with glitter and beauty, but little punch otherwise. Yulric Bile is an old school vampire: ugly, fearing crosses and running water, with nothing in the way of glamour, yet also adept at dark magic and much more resilient than the “modern vampyrs” with their glitz and life of night-clubs. Of course, both the former and the latter at cliché. Of course, the story pokes fun at Twilight-like vampires… although, all things considered, I think it pokes even *more* fun at wannabe-Camarilla vampires. (Any “Vampire: the Masquerade” player will see where I’m going with this. All the more if they’ve played the first edition. Ah, those good old days when we thought emo!vampire was all the rage…)

There are ridiculous and sympathetic characters on both sides. Amanda, the sexy blonde who’d like nothing better than to be turned a vampire, but maybe not for such obvious reasons. The cast from the “Phantom” TV series, clearly a mirror of contemporary paranormal and urban fantasy stories, complete with forums and fangirls, convoluted romance and Face-Hell (and Heel-Face) turns. Simon, Amanda’s little brother, too serious for a kid—also to enamored with weapons. Yulric, dangerous and ruthless yet also mesmerised by modern inventions like TV (and let’s not talk about his first meeting a car).

Mostly this book was a light read perfect for moments when you do need something fun, something that shall make you smile. It has its own brand of a sense of humour, including Yulric’s, who’s not so unsympathetic.

On the other hand, some things were a bit too… all over the place? Not in the right places? Vermillion’s involvment, for instance: I see where this is going, but it was strange to see so much of him, considering how he was involved. Or Simon: both cute and creepy in his own way, yet no real use was made of the whole “the eight-year-old reincarnation of his greatest foe“ hint from the blurb (it wasn’t mentioned until late, it didn’t bear much weight on his relationship with Yulric…). Or Catherine: good for her, but how did she go from 4-year coma-patient to sauntering about in a matter of a few days?

The writing was also jumpy in quite a few places, mixing points of views in a way that wasn’t really omniscient POV, and so felt weird to read. The footnotes were funny in general; some could’ve been omitted, though, as those didn’t bring anything to the fun factor.

So, funny in general, although in the end it didn’t amuse me as much as I hoped it would have when I read the blurb. Still, this is the kind of book I’d recommend borrowing, at least.

Yzabel / April 1, 2016

Review: Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’ve Got Henchmen

Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’ve Got Henchmen by Richard Roberts

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

What would middle school be like if half your classmates had super powers? It’s time for Penny Akk to find out. Her latest (failed) attempt to become a superhero has inspired the rest of the kids in her school to reveal their own powers.

Now, all of her relationships are changing. She has a not-at-all-secret admirer, who wants to be Penny’s partner almost as much as she wants to be Penny’s rival. The meanest girl in school has gained super powers and lost her mind. Can Penny help her find a better one? Can she help an aging supervillain connect with his daughter, and mend the broken hearts of two of the most powerful people in the world? And in all this, where will she find time for her own supervillainous fun, or even more dangerous, to start dating?

It’s going to be a long, strange semester.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.]

I have been following this series from its first volume, which I really liked, so I’ll admit to being slightly biased. I like the main characters, the world of superheroes and villains developed here—everybody knows they exist, with more or less admiration and acceptance of what they do, and with a subverted Masquerade trope (supers don’t hide per se, but there’s an unspoken rule about “not getting personal”, that is, not revealing people’s day-to-day identities).

And I’m feeling torn, because I liked this third volume, yet also found it kind of weak in terms of plot. Perhaps because it’s more focused on a part of Penny et al.’s life we hadn’t really seen yet, that is, growing up, and finding out that dividing one’s life between villainous activities, trying to become a hero, and just good old norma activities, is time-consuming and difficult.

In that regard, it was interesting. Other kids are making their coming out, refusing to hide their powers any longer, and a wind of acceptance is blowing over the school. The club activities, the new lair, those were both fun to read about, and also leading to more thoughtful considerations.

I quite liked Marcia’s development, although I wish we had been given some more information about how exactly she turned out like that (“she has the scrolls” is a bit of a shortcut: how did she survive them?). Her powers are of a kind that I find fascinating, that is, would you stay sane if nothing could hurt you, or not for long? Or would you start experimenting, looking for the one thing that may do you harm? It made me think of Claire’s experiments at the beginning of the “Heroes” series, only in a more.. unhealthy way. But then, I much prefer this Marcia to theuppity girl from book 1.

Quite a few things that left me frustrated, though:

– This is really more a “slice of life” book, without any real plot apart from the loose “teenagers gathering and developing their powers”. As mentioned above, it allowed to delve deeper into our three wannabe-heroes (or wannabe-villains?) problems and potential choices for the future, and to reveal more about existing characters, like Bull and his family. On the other hand, there was no real main plot here, ideas would spring up and unfurl into short events that would then die down, and good plot devices were lost in the middle. What about the robot? (Having her around more would’ve been fun… and I think we could do with a new Vera by now.) What exactly happened to Barbara to make her another kind of unpredictable, but perhaps still as dangerous as her sister? Also, we’re having many secondary characters introduced (the club) and this is screen time may have been better used on the Inscrutable Machine (who didn’t do enough villainy to my liking—I want to see them dostuff back together more often!).

– Still no real insight as to Ray’s family, which makes his position hard to relate to: it seems his parents would hate him if they were to learn he’s a super, and so he both wants to stay and to leave… but that’s only what we’re told. We never get to see his family. We don’t know what they’re like. Regular people, from what I rememberfrom book 1… or not so much? Are they heroes or villains in disguise? Or maybe people who got badly hurt in the past by some hero or villain, and now they despise everything “super”? I really, really want to know, and I really hope there’s more to Ray’s folks than the little we’vebeen told so far. It can’t be so simple. And if it has to be “that bad”, then I want to see it, too.

– Are the Akks so blind as to their daughter’s activities? Or are they pretending not to know? Deluding themselves? By now, this is more than troublesome. Maybe Penny’s father might get away with this (scientist more focused on his own inventions, and all that), but it’s difficult to keep seeing the Audit as this calculating, probabilities- and statistics-wielding ex-hero, as this sort of human computer, when she’s so oblivious to what’s so obvious. The “bumbling blind adult” trope isn’t working.

Honestly, I don’t like giving less than 3 stars to this book. But…

Nevertheless, this novel raises some interesting questions and potential future arcs at the end, and I’d still want to see those in a next installment, if it meant more antics from the trio. Among other things: what is the Inscrutable Machine to do, to choose, considering that they seem to be really talented at villainous stuff (with the good deeds backfiring), yet still find themselves instinctively helping people as well as causing mayhem? And what is Spider up to?

Yzabel / March 8, 2016

Review: The Shadow Queen

The Shadow Queen by C.J. Redwine

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Lorelai Diederich, crown princess and fugitive at large, has one mission: kill the wicked queen who took both the Ravenspire throne and the life of her father. To do that, Lorelai needs to use the one weapon she and Queen Irina have in common—magic. She’ll have to be stronger, faster, and more powerful than Irina, the most dangerous sorceress Ravenspire has ever seen.

In the neighboring kingdom of Eldr, when Prince Kol’s father and older brother are killed by an invading army of magic-wielding ogres, the second-born prince is suddenly given the responsibility of saving his kingdom. To do that, Kol needs magic—and the only way to get it is to make a deal with the queen of Ravenspire, promise to become her personal huntsman…and bring her Lorelai’s heart.

But Lorelai is nothing like Kol expected—beautiful, fierce, and unstoppable—and despite dark magic, Lorelai is drawn in by the passionate and troubled king. Fighting to stay one step ahead of the dragon huntsman—who she likes far more than she should—Lorelai does everything in her power to ruin the wicked queen. But Irina isn’t going down without a fight, and her final move may cost the princess the one thing she still has left to lose.

Review:

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

It’s been a while I received it, back when it was still an ARC, so I won’t comment about formatting and the few typos I found. It happens.

I’d deem it a decent “Snow White” retelling, in that it keeps its main themes (evil queen, princess fleeing in the forest, hunter sent to take her heart and coming back with an animal’s heart…) but thankfully veers away from the typical princess-in-distress trope—that one can get boring and tiring when there’s nothing else to the princess than “I’m pretty and in distress”. Lorelai had to learn to fend for herself, growing up in exile and always on the move, while also learning responsibility: towards the kingdom she has to reclaim one day, and towards her little brother Leo, whom she was entrusted to protect by her dying father. One may argue that if reclaiming the throne was so important, she’d have done it sooner; however, she was a child at the time, and waiting until she’s 17 is more logical than lame. In spite of what Gabril tells her at some point, I don’t think you should go fighting when you obviously have no chance of winning: it wouldn’t achieve anything in the end, except making you die before your time and ruining your people’s hopes. So I’m totally OK with that.

(I was less OK with what prompted Lorelai to more action, that is, one of the characters falling under the enemy’s blows. It was a funny character, whom I’d have liked to read more about, and it felt more like a cheap ploy than an appropriate “motivator”. Maybe that’s just me.)

So we have Lorelai, Leo and Gabril, and then Kol, Trugg and Jyn, the Draconi (half-human, half-dragons) trying to save their kingdom. To do so, Kol bargains with Irina, the Evil Queen, and that doesn’t end well for him. Naive and foolish little prince and princess, thinking they can deceive a deceiver. Ah, but something had to go wrong, right?

As expected (and in a way, it’s good, because unsufferable characters who don’t grow up are annoying), Lorelai has to take action, accept to use her magic instead of always hiding, and to wage war upon Irina. Her plans weren’t terribly twisted, but they weren’t the most idiotic ones either, as they mostly made sense: risky, yet calculated, and clearly aimed at weakening the enemy. Lorelai has a strategist’s streak, and she doesn’t attack anything or anywhere just for the sake of attacking.

I liked that Irina was made more of an evil character whose side of the story is never shown: she had her reasons, and we get a glimpses of them. Unfortunately, I had come to expect more in that regard, and in the end it was never truly “explained”—or, rather, her motives were explained on the surface, but I didn’t feel them as tangible, as something she really suffered for. There was jealousy, and her certainty of having been let down by her family, and wanting to reclaim what she saw as her own. There was a dilemma, too, as she had to choose between power and people. However, the latter went too fast, was decided too quickly. It was an important turning point of sorts, and as such, it would’ve deserved more screen time? I mean, if it’s about explaining a villain’s motives, might as well go all the way.

The writing was OK, not exceptional. The characters had their good sides, and were brave, but they don’t really float above many other characters, they didn’t left me with much of an impression. I didn’t care about the romance, which was close to insta-love. In spite of a lot of action, it felt somewhat boring at times. Overall it was alright, but nothing original or eye-opening in the end.

Yzabel / March 3, 2016

Review: The Painted Ocean

The Painted Ocean by Gabriel Packard

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

When I was a little girl, my dad left me and my mum, and he never came back. And you’re supposed to be gutted when that happens. But secretly I preferred it without him, cos it meant I had my mum completely to myself, without having to share her with anyone. And I sort of inherited all the affection she used to give to my dad – like he’d left it behind for me as a gift, to say sorry for deserting me

So says eleven year old Shruti of her broken home in suburban middle England. But hopes of her mother’s affection are in vain: speaking little English, and fluent in only Hindi and Punjabi, Shruti’s mother is lost, and soon falls prey to family pressure to remarry. To find another husband means returning to India and leaving Shruti behind.

Meanwhile at school a new arrival, the indomitable Meena, dispenses with Shruti’s bullying problems and transforms her day to day life. Desperate for companionship Shruti latches on to Meena to the point of obsession, following her through high school and on to university. But when Meena invites Shruti to join her on holiday in India, she has no idea how dangerous her obsession will turn out to be…

Review:

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

There were merits to this book, for what it denounced (oppression; rape; manipulative people who drown others in words the better to confuse them; humans demeaning other humans to the point of making them look like animals). Unfortunately, I thought the story overall was too implausible, and the characters not compelling enough for me to really care.

The first half of the novel was decent enough at first, depicting Shruti’s life in England as an 11-year old kid whose father was gone and whose mother was torn between her life with her daughter, and the family’s honour. This is made most blatant through the Uncle Aadesh character, who wants her to go back to India and marry another man, however the price would be to put Shruti in a foster family… and leaver her there. Terrorised by the prospect of being kept away from her mother, Shruti makes bad decision upon bad decision, managing to land herself in, well, a foster family.

And I guess this is where things started to go downhill, because for the whole story, Shruti struck me as a pushover and a not so smart person, which didn’t made her sympathetic nor made me root for her. Meena wasn’t better, mind you: her way of ending the bullying Shruti suffered was efficient but ruthless, and her idea to teach Aadesh a lesson was just mind-boggling (what sane 12-year old girl would come up with that? Why did Shruti not reflect upon that when she was grown-up?). It didn’t reflect so much the life of South-Asian people in the UK than make me wonder why I should care, and this was really too bad, because I wanted to care, and I wanted to read more about Shruti’s experiences… if only they hadn’t been so improbable and/or based on silly decisions on her part. I guess that’s obsession for you: it makes you dumb.

More than anything, what bothered me seriously was Shruti’s voice. It fitted her as a 11-year old girl, even though all the “cos” and “like” and “And I was this. And I was that. And then we did this. And then that happened.” quickly got on my nerves. However, it was definitely weird when she kept that voice as a 18/19-year old woman, and when she went through the traumatising experiences of the second half of the novel, it was… disturbing. Not in a good way: in a “see a child being raped” way. I don’t particularly like reading about that. Rape is terrible enough as it is.

Those same experiences were also too far on the bizarre end of the spectrum: flying to the other side of the world, getting embroiled in such situations, people treating others like slaves, manipulative games… All those kept piling up upon each other, to the point where my suspension of disbelief was all but suspended by a thread, which broke quickly soon after that. If it had been less unbelievable, and more subtle, it would definitely have had a strong impact; but there’s strong, and there’s overkill. I wanted to feel for Shruti, and ended up just wondering why she couldn’t see through anything, why she thought like a kid (using a stolen passport and thinking that’s a good idea? Well…), why anyone would make such decisions, really. The ending was interesting; it would’ve been better if it hadn’t been so rushed—I honestly couldn’t believe how Shruti managed to get where she did, in so few pages (considering how non-savvy she was, she should have died ten times over).

I may have appreciated the story if the bizarre setting had been peopled with characters I could enjoy reading about… but it wasn’t.

Yzabel / February 29, 2016

Review: Hell’s Bounty

Hell’s Bounty by Joe R. Lansdale

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

If the Western town of Falling Rock isn’t dangerous enough due to drunks, fast guns and greedy miners, it gets a real dose of ugly when a soulless, dynamite-loving bounty hunter named Smith rides into town to bring back a bounty, dead or alive—preferably dead. In the process, Smith sets off an explosive chain of events that send him straight to the waiting room in Hell where he is offered a one-time chance to absolve himself.

Satan, a bartender also known as Snappy, wants Smith to hurry back to earth and put a very bad hombre out of commission. Someone Smith has already met in the town of Falling Rock. A fellow named Quill, who has, since Smith’s departure, sold his soul to the Old Ones, and has been possessed by a nasty, scaly, winged demon with a cigar habit and a bad attitude. Quill wants to bring about the destruction of the world, not to mention the known universe, and hand it all over: moon, stars, black spaces, cosmic dust, as well as all of humanity, to the nasty Lovecraftian deities that wait on the other side of the veil. It’s a bargain made in worse places than Hell.

Even Satan can’t stand for that kind of dark business. The demon that has possessed Quill, a former co-worker of Satan, has gone way too far, and there has to be a serious correction.

And though Smith isn’t so sure humanity is that big of a loss, the alternative of him cooking eternally while being skewered on a meat hook isn’t particularly appealing. Smith straps on a gift from Snappy, a holstered Colt pistol loaded with endless silver ammunition, and riding a near-magical horse named Shadow, carrying an amazing deck of cards that can summon up some of the greatest gunfighters and killers the west has ever known, he rides up from hell, and back into Falling Rock, a town that can be entered, but can’t be left.

It’s a opportunity not only for Smith to experience action and adventure and deal with the living dead and all manner of demonic curses and terrible prophecies, it’s a shot at love with a beautiful, one-eyed, redheaded-darling with a whip, a woman named Payday. But it’s an even bigger shot at redemption.

Saddle up, partner. It’s time to ride into an old fashioned pulp and horror adventure full of gnashing teeth, exploding dynamite, pistol fire, and a few late night kisses.

Review:

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

A crossover between western, horror and dark comedy, where a bounty hunter who blew himself up to Hell (literally) is recruited to prevent the end of the world. This mix is full of saloon pillars, hardened girls, flash-eating ghouls, not too clever zombies, and heroes (and foes) out of the Far West legends and dime novels. A bizarre and mismatched posse, and none is guaranteed to come out of this alive.

I found this novel fairly weird: entertaining to a degree, but sort of straddling a fence, as if it never knew what it really wanted to be. Horror? Comedy? It would lean alternatively towards one or the other, swinging back and forth between both genres, sometimes successfully, sometimes with results that were a bit silly. There’s a Lovecraftian-like threat, and a mesmerising long night with vivid imagery of a moon cleft in two by a tower… and there’s the villain that looked like a cross between a gargoyle and a bat. There’s Falling Rock, with its resident bully who hits prostitues and shoots down just about anyone out of his own feelings of misery… and there are all the stereotypes, perhaps too much like stereotypes, of, well, stereotypical western stories (drunk doc, undertaker, kid playing at being a big gun…). There are scenes both gruesome and funny—like the short-lived moment when Jenny comes out of her grave—and there are others where the humour doesn’t take too well. The ghouls are often dumb and presented more like comic relief… and then dismember and eat people like there’s not tomorrow.

The writing itself was disjointed and weird at times. I got an ARC, so I wouldn’t expect it to be flawless, yet often a sentence would jump out of the page, looking twisted and not fully grammatically correct. Though it wasn’t absolutely unreadable, it was distracting enough to pull me out of the story at times. The dialogues, too, were hit or miss: some lines made me smile and snort, befitting dark humour western characters, while others just made me roll my eyes. Some parts were action-packed and a funny ride, and others ended up feeling repetitive (attack zombies, get hurt/maimed/trampled/killed/devoured, not necessarily in that order, rinse and repeat).

I’d deem this the kind of quick read definitely worth it when you don’t need to focus and just want to spend a few hours with an entertaining story. Which in itself is not a bad thing, nor anything to be belittled. However, the writing and the wonky pacing don’t make it much more than “enjoyable then forgettable”. 2.5 stars.

Yzabel / February 27, 2016

Review: Tell the Wind and Fire

Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

In a city divided between opulent luxury in the Light and fierce privations in the Dark, a determined young woman survives by guarding her secrets.

Lucie Manette was born in the Dark half of the city, but careful manipulations won her a home in the Light, celebrity status, and a rich, loving boyfriend. Now she just wants to keep her head down, but her boyfriend has a dark secret of his own—one involving an apparent stranger who is destitute and despised. Lucie alone knows the young men’s deadly connection, and even as the knowledge leads her to make a grave mistake, she can trust no one with the truth.

Blood and secrets alike spill out when revolution erupts. With both halves of the city burning, and mercy nowhere to be found, can Lucie save either boy—or herself?

Review:

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

A retelling of Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities”, with a futuristic and urban-fantasy twist: the two cities are the two halves of New York, Light and Dark, divided according the type of magic their respective citizens can wield. Light magic for healing, for dazzling, for fighting in the name of what is “good”, through the use of bejeweled rings. And Dark magic, feeding on blood and death, but necessary nonetheless because only a Dark mage can save a Light one when the latter finds themselves poisoned by the build-up of their own power, cristallised in their veins. And in the middle of this, the dopplegangers, always born to the Dark, and cursed to die young, bearing the faces of whose people they saved by simply being created, thus taking their misery upon them.

Lucie Manette used a to be a citizen of the Dark, until her mother vanished and her father got jailed, ending up so traumatised he cannot function properly some days. After Lucie devised a plan to make him escape, they went to live with a couple of friends in Light New York, and that’s where she discovered another kind of life: one where she could be close to powerful people, one where she found love with Ethan Stryker, handsome and heir to a brilliant future.

As a retelling, I thought this worked surprisingly well in some ways: the story followed quite a few of the themes of the original one. The torn family escaping a tumultuous place and finding refuge in an apparently more peaceful one. The motif of the “double”, dealt with here with the dopplegangers—Carwyn is obviously Sydney, and his reputation as “depraved” comes from his being a doppleganger, with all the rumours about them (they have no souls, they’re born from death, etc.). The mistaken identity. The love triangle (because there is a love triangle in Dickens’s novel, so even though I usually don’t care for them, at least here it was to be expected as a motif, too). Lucie as the narrator, yet still used as a symbol, still considered as the girl to be paraded, so to speak. Sacrifice and “doing what’s right”. I found those themes, and was glad to see them, and at the same time to see how different the plot had turned out.

On the other hand, quite a few things contributed to making this book not work for me. The characters, for starters, rather weak and underdeveloped. For most of the story, Ethan was the bland cookie-cutter nice boyfriend without much of a personality. Carwyn was snarky and all, but it was difficult to get a real feeling for who he was, and I admit that mostly what I ended up with were my memories of the character of the original novel, as a trope rather than a person. Lucie… Lucie was supposedly strong, but she kept making stupid decisions that I couldn’t understand, not in a character who was supposed to be “street-savvy”. Stupid upon stupid decisions, and for someone who had spent two years navigating a different world, and the years before surviving in the Dark, she was definitely bordering on the too stupid to live variety, in spite of her magic and the way she perceived herself (she does acknowledge when she makes a bad decision… afterwards—and then promptly makes another one). This character was baffling, really, and every time she made me think she was strong, she immediately destroyed that by doing something stupid again. (And what about going to such lengths to save her father, then never talking to her family in the Dark? It didn’t seem like they had done anything wrong…)

The plot was also slow-paced, a bit confusing at first, relying on a few chapters of info-dumping to make the setting clear. I’d say about half to two thirds of the story were somewhat boring, The last 30% made the novel more interesting again, however the ending felt too open (I don’t know if there’ll be a second installment, if this is a standalone novel or the beginning of a series). The situation in both cities isn’t solved. What happens to Lucie and her beloved ones isn’t solved either, and could go wrong in so many ways that we could do with an epilogue or an additional chapter. Lucie’s status as a symbol isn’t made clear either: will other people let her stand up for what she believes in, or will she be discreetly smothered in a corner after a while? After all, she said it herself: “the Golden Thread in the Dark” (not a fan of this tile, by the way, however it echoes well Lucie’s hair in AToTC) was a child, pure and innocent, but once the child becomes a woman, people start perceiving her differently, and the image she projects is different, too…

Last but not least, the typical “pocket-world syndrome” often found in dystopian stories. New York is clearly not the only place where people can use Light and Dark magic (trains go to other places outside of the city, for instance), but there’s never any mention of another type of government than the Light council, no mention of other cities, no National Guard or whatever to intervene when the revolution starts, and so on. It’s like Light & Dark New York are the only cities left on Earth, or as if the rest of the world doesn’t care, won’t do anything, won’t even turn an eye on its problems. I always find this odd.

All in all, it *was* an interesting retelling in several ways, and a darker kind of YA as well, but fell short of what I thought it could’ve been.

Yzabel / February 25, 2016

Review: Try Not To Breathe

Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Some secrets never die. They’re just locked away.

Alex Dale is lost. Destructive habits have cost her a marriage and a journalism career. All she has left is her routine: a morning run until her body aches, then a few hours of forgettable work before the past grabs hold and drags her down. Every day is treading water, every night is drowning. Until Alex discovers Amy Stevenson. Amy Stevenson, who was just another girl from a nearby town until the day she was found unconscious after a merciless assault. Amy Stevenson, who has been in a coma for fifteen years, forgotten by the world. Amy Stevenson, who, unbeknownst to her doctors, remains locked inside her body, conscious but paralyzed, reliving the past.

Soon Alex’s routine includes visiting hours at the hospital, then interviews with the original suspects in the attack. But what starts as a reporter’s story becomes a personal obsession. How do you solve a crime when the only witness lived but cannot tell the tale? Unable to tear herself away from her attempt to uncover the unspeakable truth, Alex realizes she’s not just chasing a story—she’s seeking salvation.

Review:

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

An OK read, though I wouldn’t go further than that. I could guess easily enough who the culprit was (there are plenty of hints if you pay attention), and while chasing those was fun, in retrospect, there weren’t many really “suspenseful” moments—everything was well-packed by the end.

Told through the point of view of three characters mostly, the story deals with the mystery surrounding the coma in which Amy Stevenson has spent the past 15 years of her life, after having been assaulted and left for dead. She’s still here, in her head, her mind still active, but very sluggishly, as if one year was perhaps only one day for her, and she’s first convinced she’s just sick, or hungover. Her only visitors are Jacob, who cannot let go, and Alex, a journalist struggling with alcoholism and the health problems that will follow (ironically enough, Alex used to be a successful health columnist). As Alex gets intrigued by Amy’s fate, feeling close to her both geographically and in age, she starts digging into past events, trying to figure out if there’s still a way to bring justice to the victim here, or if all trails have now gone forever cold.

I’d say the premises are definitely interesting, but the way the story unfolded was a bit… boring. Partly because of the style, that regularly was more about telling than showing (especially in the beginning), partly because, as previously mentioned, I thought there wasn’t enough tension, not enough at stake—I didn’t feel the sense of urgency and danger I like to find in mystery and triller novels, that foreboding, impending certainty that “something” is going to happen to the main character before the end. I also think I expected something different when it came to Amy’s involvment: different ways of communicating, maybe, instead of Alex sitting next to her bed and talking? Or something closer to Amy slowly waking up, or desperately trying to let the world know what she knew, and failing due to her body not responding?

The characters in general weren’t as fleshed out nor as interesting as I had hoped; in fact, they were more often annoying than anything else. Alex’s drinking problem, how she screwed up her career and marriage, weren’t such a “dark” background as a somewhat idiotic one (that is, her reactions, her way of going about a lot of things didn’t make me think she was a clever person). Jacob’s wobbly relationship with Fiona felt mainly like something that could’ve been dealt with in five minutes if the characters had been remotely willing to communicate—that was a no-brainer for me, I don’t even see why Jacob had to lie at first. (And let’s be honest, while Fiona’s reactions can be viewed as understandable, considering that she had had a bad experience in the past, the way she immediately jumped to conclusions and put on the drama queen act weren’t exactly encouraging for Jacob to start spilling the beans, making her appear like a harpy, and making me wonder if such a partner would be worth the trouble. But then, I guess I’m just not one to deal with high-maintenance people anyway.)

Conclusion: Interesting theme, but that would have worked better with more tension, and perhaps a different involvment of the comatose character. 2.5 stars.