Yzabel / October 13, 2014

Review: Soulless

SoullessSoulless 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 / September 18, 2014

Review: Afterworlds

AfterworldsAfterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Darcy Patel has put college and everything else on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. Arriving in New York with no apartment or friends she wonders whether she’s made the right decision until she falls in with a crowd of other seasoned and fledgling writers who take her under their wings… Told in alternating chapters is Darcy’s novel, a suspenseful thriller about Lizzie, a teen who slips into the ‘Afterworld’ to survive a terrorist attack. But the Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead and as Lizzie drifts between our world and that of the Afterworld, she discovers that many unsolved – and terrifying – stories need to be reconciled. And when a new threat resurfaces, Lizzie learns her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she loves and cares about most.

Review:

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

Pretty interesting premise, but in the end I found the execution wanting, and the stories not that interesting, unfortunately.

I really liked the beginning: Darcy having to navigate her way in New York, meeting published authors as well as other “debs” like her (people whose book was to be published in the upcoming months), having to take editing and rewriting tasks into account… The first pages of Lizzie’s story were gripping, too, and I appreciated how we’re shown the final version of Darcy’s book, running parallel to her own editing of the first draft, with all the pitfalls that were in it (exposition chapters, huge info-dumps…) and were then removed. As someone who likes writing, too,
I couldn’t help but find this comment about the YA scene and authors’ jobs quite interesting. The book is full of little allusions to similar themes: Darcy obviously wrote her novel during NaNoWriMo 2012, the Darcy/Lizzie hint at “Pride and Prejudice” is totally acknowledged, the authors debate about what’s more important (plot? characters? conflict? setting?), and so on.

However, a lot of aspects in “Afterworlds” were problematic.

For starters, I’m not sure YA readers not specifically interested in writing would “get it”. Clearly it’s going to be a hit-or-miss here.

Also, the characters weren’t that impressive. Those from Darcy’s novel were rather bland in my opinion, and what I may deem “typical YA cut-outs”. Yamaraj: the mysterious love interest without much of a personality. Jamie: the best friend who, in Darcy’s copy-editor’s own terms, “has car, lives with father”, and not much more. In fact, Darcy’s novel would have deserved to stand on its own, because it would’ve allowed the author to properly develop its world and characters, and make it the gripping idea it seemed to be in the beginning. (I’m still convinced that opening scene in the airport is a proper attention-catcher.)

Darcy was definitely annoying: totally immature, without any sense of responsibility (she missed so many deadlines, such as the ones for college applications, lease renewal, and her writing was two inches from going the same way), jumping to conclusions, thinking in terms of the world revolving around her… Defects I would’ve happily forgiven, if she had learnt from them, but she didn’t. And in the end? In the end, Little Miss Lucky still got lucky, still landed an astonishing deal, still managed to waltz out of problems without that much of a hitch. All things that are potential insults at actual writers, the large majority that doesn’t land an agent after just a few weeks of querying, nor a $300,000 book deal for his/her first novel. I’m all in favour of selling dreams, but those were too much a matter of dumb luck, not of work and personal improvement. I didn’t root for Darcy at all. (I was also rather miffed at her plot taking a “let’s focus on the love relationship” turn. There were so many other things it could have focused on…)

Mostly, I felt that this book had great potential in being a pretty good parody, but couldn’t make up its mind about being one or not. Why a parody? For all the jabs at YA novels, at their shortcomings, elements I tend to notice as well when I read such stories. “Afterworlds” could be an excellent critique of the current market—a market I personally find saturated with cookie-cutter themes and plots (the same old kind of love interest, the same trend of characters whose questionable decisions put them in the too-stupid-to-live category…). Unfortunately, the way it is, it fell into the exact pit traps it (unconsciously or not?) denounced.

A note as well about a few questions raised throughout Darcy’s narrative. There was an interesting discussion about culture appropriation, and how Darcy’s use of Yama, an actual deity from Hindu mythology, amounted to erasing Hinduism, or at least part of it, from her world, by not openly acknowledging him as part of this religion. I found this point very valid. And yet, at the same time, Darcy herself represents a removal of cultural heritage: she’s of Indian origin, but apart from her surname and physical description, she’s the typical “white protagonist”. (She’s not religious, her family isn’t particularly religious either, they all behave like standard Americans in novels… In other words: why make her from a different culture, if it’s not to use it? Was it just for the sake of having a non-white protagonist… or, on the contrary, to point at how many other novels appropriate various cultures, only to “whiten” them?)

The underlying critique is definitely present, and something I can’t help thinking about, wondering if it was on purpose, or totally accidental. I don’t know how to take this novel, except with a grain of salt. I’m giving it 2 stars because of the parody it could be, one that made me snicker and nod my head in acknowledgment. But story-wise, I think it should either have been made a stronger read (as it was, it became boring rather quickly), or have gone all the way as a more obvious means of denouncing the many problems going rampant in the YA publishing industry. If it’s one, I’m not sure that many people will realise it, unfortunately (and especially not younger readers—not because they’re young, just because they may not have the necessary reading background to see the critique I mentioned).

Yzabel / September 6, 2014

Review: The Girl and the Clockwork Cat

The Girl and the Clockwork CatThe Girl and the Clockwork Cat by Nikki McCormack

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

Feisty teenage thief Maeko and her maybe-more-than-friend Chaff have scraped out an existence in Victorian London’s gritty streets, but after a near-disastrous heist leads her to a mysterious clockwork cat and two dead bodies, she’s thrust into a murder mystery that may cost her everything she holds dear.

Her only allies are Chaff, the cat, and Ash, the son of the only murder suspect, who offers her enough money to finally get off the streets if she’ll help him find the real killer.

What starts as a simple search ultimately reveals a conspiracy stretching across the entire city. And as Maeko and Chaff discover feelings for each other neither was prepared to admit, she’s forced to choose whether she’ll stay with him or finally escape the life of a street rat. But with danger closing in around them, the only way any of them will get out of this alive is if all of them work together.

Review:

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

I had good expectations for this story (a street thief, victorian/steampunkish setting, part-mechanical cat), but in the end, it won’t leave me with a lasting impression, unfortunately.

The daughter of a prostitute and one of her unnamed customers, Maeko hit the streets after her mother got in debt, trying to help her pay it back as well as she could, but also resenting her. She made her way as a pickpocket and burglar, thanks to her nimble fingers and lithe body, and because she was street-savvy enough. That is, until the beginning of the novel, for at some point I thought she was not as clever as she was supposed to be. Some of her reactions seemed logical, but some of her other actions were too naive. (For instance, when she had to keep something from an enemy, she went back to a certain place, saw that said enemy had located it, too… yet she still went there to hide her package. The natural thing to do would have been to think “this place is compromised, he might not have believed what they told him, and come back later with more people.” At least that’s what “street rat thinking” should be for me.)

The setting itself is an alternate London divided between the Literati (the “modern society” and its police) and the pirates (those who openly don’t approve); the kids who fall between those are doomed to a life in an orphanage, reform house or work house, or to a life on the streets. Mostly we see this world through Maeko’s eyes, so of course everything couldn’t be developed, but it would’ve been better in my opinion if she had had just a little more interest in what happened around her, or if other characters had been there to give more information about that society. Some do… just not enough. This setting screams for more, having more to say about itself, without any room to do so.

The romance part was unneeded, a love triangle dumped out of nowhere on those poor characters. All it did was to make Maeko blush and blush and blush again and again. It quickly became old and tiring, and did not bring anything to the story. At least Maeko realised there was no time to think about boys in her predicament. On the downside, she had those thoughts fairly often, which created a tiresome cycle: “I think I like him. But I must not think about that now. But I think I like him. But I don’t have time to worry about this now.”

I wasn’t too impressed with the plot, which consisted mostly in two/three characters looking for people (the same people every time). Just like Maeko’s thoughts and blushing, it became repetitive after a while: locate people, see they’re already in someone else’s hands, realise they’re in no position to help them escape, retreat/get pursued by the police or detective, hide, rinse and repeat. I really wished the plot types would have been more varied.

The writing was all right, though a bit redundant and “telly” in places (especially when Maeko’s thought process was concerned).

The ending: if this is a standalone, then it deserved a better one, a proper one, that would wrap up everything, not just leave the reader to imagine “it probably happened like that”. If it wasn’t, it’s still a sort of cliffhanger, but one that doesn’t offer that many promises of revelations in a second book.

In the end, there were grounds for good things here, but those weren’t enough to make me enjoy the story.

Yzabel / August 24, 2014

Review: Darkness

DarknessDarkness by Erin Eveland

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

One Girl. One Boy. And the Masters of Darkness. See the Shadow Creatures. They are everywhere. But you can’t run from the shadows or the Masters who control them.

Catherine has been born with a supernatural power called Darkness. The Masters of Darkness have found her and it’s just a matter of time before someone claims her.

An Interactive Novel
A QR Code starts the beginning of each chapter connecting the reader to specific art or music that ties into the mood and setting of the novel. Using the quick response code in print and eBook formatting, Darkness incorporates visual and sound to heighten the reading experience.

Review:

(I got this book from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

Try as I might, I couldn’t get into this novel, in spite of a theme that seemed appealing to me. Although I liked the idea of “interactive” parts (codes/links leading to songs, videos, pictures.. that had artistic value regarding the various chapters).

I think the main reasons to this are that:

1) I couldn’t connect with the characters at all. Perhaps because I’m not currently in the mood for Bleak Life Is Bleak worlds, where nothing the people do seem to be able to get them out of their misery? Catherine had a strong streak, but in spite of that, I found her extremely passive, basically waiting on a guy that wouldn’t look at her so often, just because they had been friends for a couple of years before that. This, in itself, was partly understandable (wanting to escape a horrible life with someone you love), except that he didn’t show any inclination to do so, she never tried to prod and see how he was feeling about it, and so it looked less like hope than unfounded infatuation.

2) The romance between Nathan and Catherine: no chemistry to speak of. Again, with more action and less wishful-thinking-in-my-little-corner on their part, it could have worked.

3) The whole Darkness/Light conflict and mythology was confusing. It made more sense when Jorgen explained it, but this comes rather late in the story. In the end, I’m still not sure if Catherine is Darkness or Light or a mix of both, nor what exactly Artros wanted of her.

4) The story lacked editing. A few typos here and there, I can live with. However, the story had a tendency to go into rambling, about the thoughts of this or that character, as if at some point, several versions of those thoughts had been written, then left all together because choosing one turned too hard to do. It slowed down the pace and caused me to start skimming after a while.

5) Nothing much happens before the 65-68% mark. The characters are unhappy, then unhappy again, then something makes them more unhappy… And I just can’t believe that after Kathy’s episode with the hospital, no social worker pulled Cathering out of there. I know the CPS don’t have the most brilliant reputation, but that was stretching it. (And why didn’t Catherine do anything on her own, anyway? It’s not like she was staying with her mother out of love and respect, her basic needs weren’t even met, and frankly, considering her place and living style, going to some orphanage for two years might not even have been the worst option here.)

On the good side, the idea of Darkness as a power, of controlling Shadow Creatures, was interesting. Just not used here in a way that would have made me like this story.

1.5 stars.

Yzabel / August 20, 2014

Review: The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our StarsThe Fault in Our Stars by John Green

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.

Review:

I’m not at ease with cancer stories. That illness itself makes me shudder; I might go as far as to say I’m even mildly phobic about it. But I still wanted to check this book, after reading so many good reviews about it, and after I was told that it wasn’t so much about vivid descriptions of cancer itself. So, when it popped up at the library near my parents’ home, I seized the opportunity.

Well, I might be a horrible, callous person, because I just don’t get the whole tear-inducing, heart-wrenching hype around this novel. Or maybe whatever passes for a heart in my chest cavity was too busy rolling its metaphorical eyes at all the pompousness, which for me totally ruined the story. It made me wonder if a thesaurus was harmed, raped and defaced in the process. When using Big Words, the least one can do is to us Big Words That Actually Mean What They’re Supposed To Mean. (Definition of hamartia: the error in judgement that causes the hero to achieve the opposite of what s/he meant, leading to the actual tragedy. Not just any character flaw.) This is not how I, of all people, could be touched, not when I’m too busy wondering who the hell talks like that.

Hazel struck me as pretentious, and incredibly judgemental when it came to a lot of people around her. Gallows humour I could definitely take, understand, and appreciate—but this wasn’t humour. This was just demeaning. The way she spoke of the support group and of Patrick, as if his life had no value? Disgusting:

“…the relief that he escaped lo those many years ago when cancer took both of his nuts but spared what only the most generous soul would call his life.”

I sure couldn’t empathise with her attitude towards her parents at times (how dare they show feelings and cry; or wake her up at 5:30 in the morning to prepare and board the plane to go to Amsterdam; or send her to support group, instead of allowing her to basically be already dead in
her everyday life). Even her attitude towards her teachers, when she attended morning classes.

And the “metaphors”. That whole thing with the eggs and breakfast foods and me going “can we get to some actual point, and not some stupid rambling about a topic that I wouldn’t even tackle if I were completely wasted?” Or the hurdles:

“And I wondered if hurdlers ever thought, you know, This would go faster if we just got rid of the hurdles.”

That’s not philosophical. That’s idiotic.

The love-at-first-sight trope seldom works for me, and it didn’t work here either. It turned the narrative into something rather cheesy, especially with all the pompous dialogues. (Seriously, I’ve met my share of university teachers and educated people in general… and we just don’t talk like that, certainly not without preparing our speeches first. So teenagers, no matter how smart? Sorry, I just can’t believe it.)

Somehow, it reminded me of some of the stuff I wrote when I was 15-16, and found recently at the bottom of a cardboard box. I remembered those “pieces” as witty, smart, full of deep meaning. I remembered writing them with such goals in mind. I was good at writing, too; I always had top grades in French and Literature classes. Then I read those again—now, that is, 20 years later—and I realised how full of myself I was at the time, and how my Big Words And Sentences were in fact just so shallow. The characters here, and their way of talking and being, left me with the same feeling. They never seemed to leave the surface level. Now that I’m done with the book, I still don’t know what Hazel likes (apart from An Imperial Affliction and her favourite TV show), what else she used to do before being diagnosed, and so on. She’s defined by 1) her illness (though said illness looked kind of like a ploy to elicit emotion, rather than anything else) and 2) Augustus, and… What else? I have no idea.

I think it could’ve been a great story… only without its pretentiousness, without its flat characters, and without its tendency to take the reader by the hand to put his/her nose into the supposed deep meaning hidden within the pages. When you feel like a novel is trying to manipulate you, is when suspension of disbelief shatters.

Yzabel / August 8, 2014

Review: Blood Crown

Blood Crown (The Eden Project #1)Blood Crown by Ali Cross

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Androids have claimed power over what remains of the human race. They rule without remorse. They are the Mind and humans exist only to serve them.

But it wasn’t always so.

Before the android uprising, select droids, called Servants, were pivotal in engineering a new human race with nanotechnology enhanced DNA. The Blood Crown theorum was to be humanity’s crowning glory and the key to their survival in deep space.

But Serantha, Daughter of the West, was the last female to receive Gifts from her Servant and when the Mind mutinied, she was hidden away, and presumed dead.

Without Serantha there is no hope of the Blood Crown being realized so Nicolai, Son of the East, abandons his crown to join the rebel forces. He might not provide the future for his people he had once dreamed of, but he will not go down without a fight.

When Nicolai discovers Sera among a small compliment of kitchen staff, everything changes–but Sera’s Gifts were never completed and she is ill-equipped to face a legion of androids determined to wipe her, and every other human, out of existence.

Their only hope is the Blood Crown–but even if Serantha and Nicolai can realize their potential it may be too late to save mankind.

Review:

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

This book throws you directly into the action, with little info dumping in the beginning: we learn information as the plot goes, and this is a method I tend to like. I found it easy enough to understand the premise of the story (the hope of enhanced humanity through nano-technology, the androids rebelling against their creators and taking control…). And the mastermind behind the android faction was devious enough to my liking. A little on the boasting side, yet with a tendency to keep a contingency plan on the side, and screw with the heroes’ minds a little more every time. I like that.

However, there were a lot of things I didn’t quite know what to make of, and those contributed to make me consider Blood Crown as a little sub-average, when I would’ve wanted to enjoy it more (from the blurb, I really hoped I would).

First, there were three points of view, but I felt that only Sera’s was really useful. Nicolai’s tended to rehash things the reader has already learnt, only with his opinion about it. Not completely uninteresting, but clearly unneeded. Archibald’s… Well, the way he saw Sera was sweet, and highlighted the possibility of feelings within machines, the “can an artificial intelligence be like a human or only copy it”; unfortunately, his scenes were often pretty short, made of waiting for events to happen, and not really useful either. Too bad; his presence could’ve been made better.

Sometimes, the characters’ actions were also hard to understand. Both Nic and Sera tended to jump into situations without thinking them through, not always because they lacked time, but because… I don’t know? And then I didn’t see any point to Nic’s lies, pretending he didn’t know who Sera was, when just explaining everything would’ve been so much easier and faster. For what reason? A very insignificant one, considering the big picture and what was at stake. It led to mistrust on Sera’s part, and to misunderstandings of a kind I don’t like: those that are here only to create artificial tension, not because they’re logical. In a way, the Mind’s apparent lack of logics (making humans cook food nobody would eat) seemed more believabe, in a “we’re superior to humans but in fact we imitate them because we want to be like them, only better, oh the irony” way.

I remain divided about the West/East thing: those terms don’t make much sense to me in space, and seemed a remnant of some USA & Eastern block thing, minus the Cold War. The ships’ names (New Oregon, New California…) and the Eastern peopel’s names (Nicolai, Natalya, Karenina…) definitely gave a very open feeling about that. Part of me is saying “sure, why not?”, while another still can’t really fathom it. Some thousand years later, in space, would we still care much about that? And what about the rest of the world? Where were people from Asian, African, or any other descent?

The pace was good enough until around 60-65% of the story… then it fell into too much romance. I didn’t mind the romance itself in hereas I do in other novels: both Nic and Sera had been kind of “programmed” for that from the beginning, with their symbiants acting to put them together, so, OK, not cool in terms of personal freedom, but not out of the blue either. Only what should’ve been a part mounting towards climax wasn’t, because both heroes were busy being romancy. At that point, I got bored.

In conclusion: interesting premise and good ideas that weren’t developed enough, and didn’t do it for me in the end. More like 1.5 stars.

Yzabel / July 23, 2014

Review: Tabula Rasa

Tabula RasaTabula Rasa by Kristen Lippert-Martin

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

The Bourne Identity meets Divergent in this action-packed debut thriller with a Katniss-esque heroine fighting to regain her memories and stay alive, set against a dystopian hospital background.

Sarah starts a crazy battle for her life within the walls of her hospital-turned-prison when a procedure to eliminate her memory goes awry and she starts to remember snatches of her past. Was she an urban terrorist or vigilante? Has the procedure been her salvation or her destruction?

The answers lie trapped within her mind. To access them, she’ll need the help of the teen computer hacker who’s trying to bring the hospital down for his own reasons, and a pill that’s blocked by an army of mercenary soldiers poised to eliminate her for good. If only she knew why . . .

Review:

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

Good idea and interesting beginning, but the second third kind of dragged in my opinion, and the ending was, well, wrapped up in a trope that made me really roll my eyes.

I liked the premise of PTSD victims being given a second chance (whether “true” victims or perpetrators) by having their memory removed—or at least, all the memories pertaining the trauma and/or crime. And in the beginning, nothing is certain as far as Sarah, the narrator, is concerned: was she so psychologically damaged and abused that she couldn’t function even with normal treatments? Or was she some hardboiled criminal, considering how despised she was by some of the hospital’s personnel? I thought the ambiguity was well-played here, because both reactions were present: nice doctors and nurses making small talk with her, while others would scowl and prevent her from having contact with other patients. Her skills, too, were ambiguous: they could be those of a burglar just as well as those of an acrobat, after all.

However, I found the pacing after that rather problematic, being a blend of action scenes interspersed with slow moments in which info was dumped and nothing really interesting happened. The mandatory YA romance subplot felt boring, too, and as is too often the case didn’t bring anything to the story. On the one hand, I get that it was part of Sarah’s development and return to her true self, something to make her feel like fighting and not give upt, but… on the other hand, does a person in such a situation really need some love interest to do that? Why did it have to be romance? One that sprang in a couple of days or so, no more. I don’t dislike romance plots; however, most of the time, they’re not really useful, and are of the marketing ploy kind, “because romance sells”, instead of being fully part of the story. Here, that was exactly my impression. Budding love? Sure. Full-blown romance with “I love you” and feelings that the person is/was The One, in less than 72 hours? Doesn’t work for me. In this type of setting, survival is key, and professing love just like that was kind of cheesy anyway.

Some of the plot points were fairly predictable, along with conveniently placed flashbacks and special snowflake syndrome (after a while). Add to this a few mind-boggling moments, such as soldiers not even taking someone’s pulse to see if that person’s indeed dead (huh?). Also, I didn’t like the ending—more specifically, the part where the Big Bad nicely explains what the plan was all about. I want explanations, of course, only I prefer them to be shown to me, not unveiled in a gloating villain speech. It’s been done too often for it to work, not to mention that the villain’s motives were… too basic.

On the bright side, somehow I still managed to like Sarah and Thomas. They had a “no bullshit” streak, in that they planned to get things done and acted on those plans, and didn’t mope around while being useless. I’m tired of heroines who don’t get anything done themselves, and Sarah was all but that. Which is why I’m leaning towards 1.5/2 stars here.

Yzabel / July 21, 2014

Review: How To Date Dead Guys

How To Date Dead Guys - Blog Tour

 

 

 

 

How To Date Dead GuysHow To Date Dead Guys by Ann M. Noser

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

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

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

Instead of raising Mike, Emma assists the others she stole back from the dead—a pre-med student who jumped off the bridge, a young man determined to solve his own murder, and a frat boy Emma can’t stand…at first. More comfortable with the dead than the living, Emma delves deeper into the seductive Book of Shadows. Her powers grow, but witchcraft may not be enough to protect her against the vengeful river and the killers that feed it their victims.

Inspired by the controversial Smiley Face Murders, HOW TO DATE DEAD GUYS will appeal to the secret powers hidden deep within each of us.

Review:

(I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Curiosity Quills, in exchange for an honest review, as part of the related blog tour. Thanks a lot for allowing me to take part in it.)

How To Date Dead Guys was a nice read, light enough and even funny in parts, while also more serious in others. The problems Emma ran into, trying to cover up for the several guys she accidentally brought back from the dead, sometimes made me smile. At the same time, the novel also provided interesting (if typical) questions about “what would you do if you had a second chance at coming to terms with something you couldn’t finish before your death?” Every single one of the drowned men left something behind them, something unfinished, whether it concerned themselves, a relative, or a lover; and those stories were all touching in their own ways. I couldn’t help but agree with them, with their choices to “make it right” or at least try to see what had become of their loved ones.

Emma as a protagonist was fine enough: painfully shy at first, but gaining confidence as she grew into her powers and was also forced to come up with lies to hide what she had done—this with a hint of being tempted in the future by this same power she’s acquired. It’s not the main focus of this first installment in the series, but I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss her desire to keep the Book of Shadows even though it put her in this mess for starters. (First one guy, then another, then three, and all with their own issues? Definitely a mess.) I also liked Jake a lot: infuriating at first, and seemingly a jerk, but one with a heart of gold, who opened Emma’s eyes on more than one thing. He wasn’t even so much a jerk, in fact, than a sociable guy who enjoyed life and took it as it came to get the best out of it, even in death. The outcome of his own predicament was a bit predictable, but cute nonetheless.

And I guess the cuteness factor is one of the things that made me like this book (that, and necromancy—let’s face it, it is necromancy, and I’m always partial to such magic). Even though the novel sometimes bordered on the “too cute”, it was enjoyable. Sure, it might seem cheesy, and yet I just want to say: “So what?” Sometimes we need twee plots and characters. Sometimes we need twee plots and characters. Sometimes I like myself such a book, and considering I had a hard time putting it down for long, I’d say it quite reached its goal.

It’s also light on the romance: there are several men involved, so it stands to logics that Emma wouldn’t get into a relationship with all of them. She’s not immune to their different personalities, their qualities, their quirks, but she manages to remember that nothing can come out of this (them being obviously doomed to become dead again at some point), and in my opinion, such budding relationships, condemned from the beginning, actually helped her grow as a person, going from fickle, almost teenager-like “first attraction” feelings to a deeper understanding of life and love.

On the other hand, I found a couple of things too exaggerated (everyone blaming Emma for Mike’s death was like kicking the proverbial puppy, and Chrissy seemed just so terribly superficial and “me, me, me” that she became tiring—good thing she doesn’t appear much). Moreover, I found the plotline a little too over the place, in that it wove the stories of all those guys, along with Emma’s, Abby’s, Walker’s, and a few others, but didn’t seem to have a really definite plot. The part about the murders came a little too late to my liking, and almost felt like a kind of afterthought, as if the novel suddenly had to be more serious than it had been up until now. There are some hints here and there, but the characters just don’t seem that bothered about them, except perhaps for two (who don’t voice out their suspicions, though, so they’re only proved right later).

I’m giving it 3/3.5 stars “only” because of that, but I’ll still recommend it if you’re looking for a light read that is sometimes fun, sometimes mellow, and sometimes sad.

You can get this book from:

Yzabel / July 18, 2014

Review: Sidekick

SidekickSidekick by Auralee Wallace

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Bremy St James, daughter of billionaire Atticus St James, has been cut off from the family fortune and is struggling to survive in a world that no longer holds its breath every time she buys a new outfit. To make matters worse, her twin sister is keeping secrets, loan sharks are circling, and the man of her dreams — a newspaper reporter — is on assignment to bring down everyone with the last name St James.

Things are certainly looking bleak for the down-and-out socialite until a good deed throws her into the path of the city’s top crime-fighter, Dark Ryder. Suddenly, Bremy has a new goal: apprentice to a superhero, and start her own crime-fighting career.

Ryder has no need for a sidekick, but it turns out the city needs Bremy’s help. Atticus St James is planning the crime of the century, and Bremy may be the only one able to get close enough to her father to stop him.

Now all she needs to do is figure out this superhero thing in less than a month, keep her identity secret from the man who could very well be The One, and save the city from total annihilation.

Well, no one ever said being a superhero would be easy…

Review:

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

OK for the most part, in that it provided me with a fluffy, fast, light reading, but nothing I’ll remember much, I’m afraid.

I liked the basic idea of the ex-rich girl deciding to tackle on the role of a hero’s sidekick: I thought it held a lot of potential for funny situations as well as superhero gadgets à la Batman. However, those situations were either not exploited enough to my liking, or too ridiculous to be actually funny. I smiled a few times, but after a while, Bremy’s membership in the Too Stupid To Live club reached such epic proportions that I would just roll my eyes and wonder why anyone even bothered with her, from her shady landlord to Ryder and Bart. Smaller doses of such clueless behaviours would’ve been funny in my eyes; here, there were just too many for me to care enough to laugh.

The characters in general weren’t fleshed out, and remained at face value level. While normally, this could work in humorous stories, at least in my own reading experience, a little depth is still somewhat needed for me to fully appreciate a cast. There wasn’t much of an explanation for Queenie’s involvement, for instance, and the whole thing with Jenny indeed seemed to have moved way too fast (one month?). Some elements remained unexplained, some loose ends weren’t tied, making the novel seem like it’s begging for a sequel. The villain’s plan also felt too stale. The love interest sparked zero interest here on my part. Again, it was supposed to be funny, I know. Only it just didn’t work in my case, owing to Bremy’s TSTL quality and Pierce’s naivety. That combo was a deadly one (not in a good nor amusing way).

Overall, this novel felt as if it was trying too hard to be funny, and in the end, it became sort of… tiring. Much to my dismay, because it’s one of the genres (humour + loser heroes) I’m usually attracted to.

Yzabel / July 17, 2014

Review: Dark Child – The Omnibus Edition

Dark Child: The Omnibus Edition (Covens Rising, #1)Dark Child: The Omnibus Edition by Adina West

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

Lately things have been getting weird for pathology technician Kat Chanter. She’s been craving raw meat, and having dreams so realistic they’re scary. When she accepts a job offer from the prestigious Hema Castus Research Institute, she hopes she’ll have the chance to discover what’s wrong with her, but instead, her move to New York thrusts her headlong into a treacherous hidden world, where the wrong move could be fatal . . .

Tarot, witchcraft and astrology all take on a frightening resonance in Dark Child’s richly imagined alternative reality where vampiric beings live among us, hidden by magic. Dark romance tangles with paranormal fantasy and page-turning suspense in this enthralling tale of ‘dark child’ Kat Chanter, half-human and half-vampire, who has woken an ancient prophecy and must face a formidable destiny.

Dark Child was originally released in serial form.

Review:

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

In the beginning, I found the story interesting… Then I lost interest pretty quickly, and struggled to finish it.

The premise was what drew me to it; while the whole vampire/shapeshifter thing is nothing new in urban fantasy, the mythology behind those here was pleasant to discover, though a bit heavy sometimes in terms of information dumping. I also liked Kat at first, as she took matters in hands, analysed her own blood to try and find out what the anomalies in it meant, and so on.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last. Mostly I’d chalk this out to four factors:

1) The pacing. At some point, I was seriously going into cabin fever mode, itching to read something else than “characters remain cooped up in hiding in some house in the mountains”. When action happened, it came a little too late to my liking, and was over too quickly. It made me think, really, so that was it? After that, the ending seemed to drag, too.

2) The characters. Kat turned out to be a rather bland, passive person who let a lot of other people talk about her as if she was an object (right under her nose). Some of it was understandable, because at some point she was compelled to remain quiet, through the use of another character’s power. But it went on later, even when such powers weren’t enacted anymore. I had good hopes for this character, and she clearly didn’t live up to them, not even a little. The others had a few distinctive features, but they never struck me as remarkable in any way. As for the “villains”… Yeah, well, not very active either.

3) The romance. Completely useless in my opinion. It didn’t bring anything to the plot, and the two male ends of the love triangle never registered as interesting for me. The only redeeming feature in it was Kat at least realising that getting involved with the Bad Boy wasn’t such a great idea.

4) Borderline Too Stupid To Live decisions. Totally subjective factor here, because I’m a geek and I get that people who’re less tech-savvy than I wouldn’t necessarily consider such issues, but… Seriously, when you’re on the lam, you do not use your cell phone to call your parents. Hello there? GPS tracking? Stuff like Facebook apps registering your location? Bad guys tapping the line? Whatever?

I wanted to like it. I really did. Alas, alas…