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Yzabel / November 25, 2014

Review: The Glass Magician

The Glass Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

Three months after returning Magician Emery Thane’s heart to his body, Ceony Twill is well on her way to becoming a Folder. Unfortunately, not all of Ceony’s thoughts have been focused on paper magic. Though she was promised romance by a fortuity box, Ceony still hasn’t broken the teacher-student barrier with Emery, despite their growing closeness.

When a magician with a penchant for revenge believes that Ceony possesses a secret, he vows to discover it…even if it tears apart the very fabric of their magical world. After a series of attacks target Ceony and catch those she holds most dear in the crossfire, Ceony knows she must find the true limits of her powers…and keep her knowledge from falling into wayward hands.

Review:

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

Again, an easy and fast read, much like the previous installment, but had not I already gotten a copy through NG, as mentioned above, I doubt I would’ve read it.

Some parts of the book were still pleasant. I still liked the idea behind the magic, and the more prominent use this time of Gaffers and their powers—seriously, working with mirrors, travelling through them, using them to spy on or find people? That’s awesome! It would have remained awesome if the rules of magic in that world hadn’t been broken in a snap of fingers at the end, and in a way that just any apprentice would probably think of at some point in his/her career. And who got to stumble upon it? Ceony.

Ceony this time just plunged deep into Too Stupid To Live territory, taking actions that a character as smart as she’s supposed to be would have immediately thought twice about. So, sure, she came prepared… but clearly not enough. And she definitely did not think through all her moves and what they may imply for other people. Not wanting to endanger more people is a very fine motive, only not when it ends up achieving exactly that.

As in the first volume, some historical elements were too out of place: she’s supposed to be of a struggling, working class-like background, but her father would take her to fire a gun when she was younger? This doesn’t scream “poor family background” to me, not in London at the end of 19th century. Other jarring elements included Ceony’s take on skirts and other views of women as creatures made to cook and take care of men:

“Langston didn’t seem to notice—he thought the tomatoes alone were a treat, and Ceony determined the man needed to get married right away. She wondered if Delilah could be coerced into dating him.”

This might have worked for another character. Not for a young woman who’s shown to act in daring ways, affirms her right to stay with her current master even though some may disapprove, wants to decide her own fate, and so on. Which is one of the problems I had with the romance in the first book: centered around the man, who was everything.

Speaking of the romance: still not convinced, all the more because of that weird chapter from Thane’s point of view, thrown among all the others narrated in Ceony’s, in which he thinks about his feelings for her. Less cooking this time; more fussing over things that seemed to spring out of nowhere (the allergy, for instance). Also, more blushing.

As for the villains, I found them paper-thin (pun totally intended). Grath and his fellow magicians would have been impressive in other circumstances, and their powers and cunning should have been put to better use. Instead, I never got to really understand their motives. Freeing Lira? All right, but what about a bigger plan, why have they been such targets for years (except for Excision, of course)? And Saraj. Why should the resident psychopath be Indian, and depicted in such a blatant display of “Danger: here comes the tall, dark stranger, so of course he must look suspicious, and of course those suspicions were well-founded”?

Decidedly, this isn’t working for me. (Nor is the cover, which is nice, but doesn’t look like anything that was in the book.)

Yzabel / November 18, 2014

Review: Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous by Gabriella Coleman

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Here is the definitive book on the worldwide movement of hackers, pranksters, and activists that operates under the name Anonymous, by the woman the Chronicle of Higher Education calls “the leading interpreter of digital insurgency” and the Huffington Post says “knows all of Anonymous’ deepest, darkest secrets.” Half a dozen years ago, anthropologist Gabriella Coleman set out to study the rise of this global collective just as some of its adherents were turning to political protest and disruption (before Anonymous shot to fame as a key player in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street). She ended up becoming so closely connected to Anonymous that some Anons claimed her as “their scholar.” Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy brims with detail from inside a mysterious subculture, including chats with imprisoned hacker Jeremy Hammond and the hacker who helped put him away, Hector “Sabu” Monsegur. It’s a beautifully written book, with fascinating insights into the meaning of digital activism and little understood facets of culture in the Internet age, such as the histories of “trolling” and “the lulz.”

Review:

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

An interesting read, but one that I found rather hard to read all at once—probably because it felt pretty dense and dry, with a lot of information that seemed to meander at times. I guess this was kind of unavoidable, because there is just so much to learn, to research, to take into account when studying such a broad subject, involving so many people, whose approaches and means of actions are as different as each individual in the lot. Nevertheless, I only managed to read it little bits by little bits.

The book allows for a better understanding of some of the best known cases in which Anonymous (as various groups) was involved, like Chanology and WikiLeaks, among others. This is a double-edged sword, though, in that it is useful if you know at least little… but if you know nothing at all, it’s going to be very confusing.

On the other hand, the author appeared as genuinely fascinated by her research. She made a point of trying to get in (well, as “in” as possible—clearly she couldn’t “get” everything, especially not what predated the 2006-2007 years) to get a better understanding of her topic, and to cast a more critical eye on a lot of tricky aspects surrounding Anonymous as a whole: people who got access to sensitive data and exposed it, people who dabbled on the fringes, people who supported the actions labelled as “Anonymous”, etc. I was expecting more bias, but she also took care of mentioning some of the (official, governmental) moves made against certain participants in the movement, without necessarily endorsing them as “the thing to do against the Bad Hackers (because that’s what I’m supposed to say to be on the right side of the law)”. Granted, she didn’t avoid all the pitfalls; however, her research in general could have been much more biased, and fortunately wasn’t.

Yzabel / November 12, 2014

Review: The Body Electric

The Body Electric by Beth Revis

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

The future world is at peace.

Ella Shepherd has dedicated her life to using her unique gift–the ability to enter people’s dreams and memories using technology developed by her mother–to help others relive their happy memories.

But not all is at it seems.

Ella starts seeing impossible things–images of her dead father, warnings of who she cannot trust. Her government recruits her to spy on a rebel group, using her ability to experience–and influence–the memories of traitors. But the leader of the rebels claims they used to be in love–even though Ella’s never met him before in her life. Which can only mean one thing…

Someone’s altered her memory.

Ella’s gift is enough to overthrow a corrupt government or crush a growing rebel group. She is the key to stopping a war she didn’t even know was happening. But if someone else has been inside Ella’s head, she cannot trust her own memories, thoughts, or feelings.

So who can she trust?

Review:

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

I had planned on reading Across the Universe ages ago, yet never got to it. Instead, I got to this one—which, from what I understand, very loosely alludes to the former. I can confirm, in any case, that not having read Beth Revis’s trilogy won’t be a problem here: the present novel is a standalone, and previous knowledge isn’t mandatory to follow its plot. Although I guess that, like me, you’ll miss a few Easter Eggs.

The story follows Ella, a girl from Malta, who struggles daily to come to terms with how sick her mother is, struck with a degenerative disease for which there is no cure. The only “cure” so far has been developed by Ella’s father; unfortunately, his death put a stop to any improvement in that regard. As a way of relieving some of her pain, Ella’s mother (a scientist as well) has created the Reverie, a system that allows people to relive their best, happiest memories in a dream-like state. But what’s been used so far as a recreational machine only has the potential to be so much more, especially after Ella realises she can link to a “dreamer”, and enter his/her Reverie to spy on and/or manipulate it.

We’re given to see the world through Ella’s prism, which is at times a narrow one, focused, as mentioned above, on what’s left of her family, and also her best friend Akilah (when they manage to communicate with each other, because the other girl is currently serving in the army). Information and world-building are thus done little by little; it’s a method I tend to prefer to large info-dumps, so depending on a reader’s preferences here, it may be a very good thing, or a problem. What I can say: I didn’t feel it difficult to get the bigger idea, even though there were moments I would have want to learn just a little more about the rest of the world, most specificically the “secessionist”, possibly “terrorism-infested” countries. This aspect made the novel feel like your average YA dystopia, but somewhat seemed both exploited and left on the side of the road at the same time.

I found Ella’s quest in general interesting, raising many questions regarding who you can trust, how can you be sure you can trust them, who is who, whether conscience resides in the brain or in the body or is yet something even more impossible to grasp. There were a few nice twists in the book about that. I just regretted the scientific aspect behind those, behind the technologies developed, wasn’t given more of an explanation—I’m not particularly a hardcore fan of hard-science SF, but I like having a little more meat on the bones, so to speak.

Another good thing about Ella: she wasn’t the average girl-falls-for-boy YA heroine. When an unknown, handsome but somehow dangerous-looking guy grasps her wrist to “warn” her about something, she doesn’t fall for his looks, she doesn’t immediately trust him: no, she punches him, which is a reaction far healthier than a lot of crap I’ve read in novels with similar characters. She looks for him for answers, but she does so knowing she may have to betray him afterwards; she’s ready to use him, not because she’s deeply manipulative, but because she’s wary, and aware that if she doesn’t do it, she might fall into a trap. After all, she doesn’t know him, while he keeps claiming the contrary: isn’t that fishy? Those reactions don’t necessarily make for a very likeable character at first, but they seemed to me definitely more believable than girl-falls-in-love-in-five-minutes. (Also there are tinges of insta-love, but they make sense… only explaining why would mean revealing too much.)

About the writing: the author delivers compelling chapters, and avoids the typical pit traps of weird metaphors (I’ve seen my share of those in YA lately…) and purple prose. This works pretty well in a no-nonsense way, and fits with the science fiction aspect.

The last chapters play a little too much on convenient happenings, which spoilt a little my enjoyment of the book. But overall, while not exceptional, I liked it. I’d deem it a 3.5*.

Yzabel / November 3, 2014

Review: The Book of Strange New Things

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

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

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

Review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She was heterosexual despite her butch appearance.

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

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

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

Peter didn’t strike me as particularly likeable anyway

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

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

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

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

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

Yzabel / October 23, 2014

Review: The Secrets of Life and Death

The Secrets of Life and Death by Rebecca Alexander

My rating: 3

Summary:

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

Review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yzabel / October 19, 2014

Review: The Schwarzschild Radius

The Schwarzschild Radius by Gustavo Florentin

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

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

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

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

Review:

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

3.5 stars, veering towards a 4.

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

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

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

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

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

Yzabel / October 15, 2014

Review: Upgraded

Upgraded by Neil Clarke

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

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

Review:

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

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

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

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

Stories I really liked:

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

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

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

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

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

Yzabel / October 13, 2014

Review: Soulless

Soulless by Amber Garr

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

Death is unavoidable…but sometimes, so is love.

Review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yzabel / October 11, 2014

Review: The Red Magician

The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

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

Review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yzabel / October 10, 2014

Review: Jackaby

Jackaby by William Ritter

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

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

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

Review:

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

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

I found myself enjoying this novel for its humour:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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