Yzabel / August 4, 2012

Review: Sweet Blood Of Mine

Sweet Blood of MineSweet Blood of Mine by John Corwin

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

From Mega Nerd to Super Stud.

Justin Case and women do not mix. Man boobs, a love of Kings and Castles, and being tight with the “nerd” crowd certainly don’t win him any points either. After rescuing Katie, his crush, it turns out she might not be the girl he thought she was, while Elyssa, the school’s Goth Girl, turns out to be more. Can high school get any more confusing?

Determined to improve himself, he joins a gym and meets a sexy girl that just oozes a “come hither, Justin” vibe. Until she attacks him in the parking lot, and Justin realizes she’s no ordinary girl but a being with supernatural speed and strength. After a narrow escape and an excruciating migraine headache, he wakes up with supernatural abilities all his own: speed, strength, and the ability to seduce every woman he sees.

While that might sound like the perfect combo for any hormonal teen, Justin is a hopeless romantic who wants his first time to be special. Is that too much to ask for? But he doesn’t know what he is or how to stop his carnal urges. One thing is clear: If he doesn’t find answers there are other more sinister supernaturals who would like nothing better than to make him their eternal plaything and do far worse than kill him.

Review:

I admit it took me some time to wrap my mind around the idea of a protagonist called ‘Justin Case’… yes, yes, I know, it’s a pun, I’m just not too fond of puns on characters’ names. Anyway, I managed to get over it after a while, and since I had never read anything by John Corwin before, I had no strong bias towards this book, which is always a good thing. Besides, the plot summary seemed interesting, and I always like to see male perspectives in such stories.

There were moments I smiled and chuckled, because the author’s packed his story with references to various ‘geeky’ elements—and I’m a glutton for cameos of all sorts. (I’m positive I even saw a Wheel of Time reference in there, about one of the very things that made me roll my eyes at the original books.) This all fits pretty well with the ‘nerd hero’ theme, and I appreciated that John Corwin made him think and react along such lines, because I feel it’s precisely the kind of comparisons and thoughts that’d come to Justin’s mind. And although there were moments, too, when Justin veered a little too much on self-pitying (I guess it’s no wonder, given what a train wreck his life has become), fortunately he regularly catches himself up and decides to act and keep his head high (and his sense of humour going) no matter what.

I enjoyed a lot of the characters, even secondary ones. The boys from the Goth gang, who even when things got tight in their group still stuck with Justin and didn’t just stop talking to him (which is something that could’ve happened in ‘high school politics’, from what I’ve already witnessed in real life). Elyssa, who was able to hold out her hand to someone who’s been trampled on, and to do it again in spite of the odds, and let’s not forget that she’s quite badass. Stacey, too, with her quirks and manners, not so much the evil character she could become, and pretty touching in her own ways. Well, alright, I didn’t care much for the average pupils at school (Katie and her friends were annoying), but this is probably on purpose—this is not where Justin’s true friends are meant to be.

I also liked the Overworld developed here. At the end of this first installment, we are far from knowing everything about it, but enough already has been revealed for readers to realize that there is strong support underneath to carry the plot. Vampires, for instance, aren’t just here looking cool, they have their own society, with their own politics and dissenssions. Same goes for sorcerers, and, I’m sure, other supernatural factions.

However, there are a couple of things I liked less in the book were, first, that the story seemed to drag a little around the middle—the hardest part in every book, in my opinion. It picked up again in the last third, and the end was great, but that middle part wasn’t so fun to read. The second thing was some aspects of the ‘nerd community’, and the corruption going on with football at school. It seemed to me like there was too much of a collection of clichés (fat geeks, rejected at school, you can’t be popular if you play LARPs, etc), and the teachers’ and administration’s attitude towards Justin and his friends was bordering on unbelievable (at least, the way it was shown made it appear so; I don’t doubt that such biases do exist in many places, though).

Other than that, I really enjoyed “Sweet Blood of Mine”, and will likely pick up the next novel in line.

Yzabel / July 8, 2012

Review: Day Soldiers

Day SoldiersDay Soldiers by Brandon Hale

My rating: [rating=5]

(Book reviewed for ARR #19 in the We ♥ YA Books! group.)

When I asked if I could read & review “Day Soldiers”, I did so because the pitched elicited some interest in me. The prospect of a war between humans and the creatures of darkness looked like something that would provide me with mild fun and a pleasant quick read. To be honest, I didn’t expect a lot from this novel—just that: being a fun and easy read.

And then I got hooked.

The prologue itself, in the form of a declaration of war, immediately grabbed me. The first chapters then pulled me into the action, as Lily and Leo, 18-year-old, decide to take on the vampires who’ve been threatening their small town, because the adults aren’t acting fast enough. As they come back victorious, little do they know that their single action is going to trigger a chain-reaction culminating into events they wouldn’t have suspected. And the both of them are going to pay a heavy price. We then get to see the two friends through their joining and training within the Day Soldiers, a corps specifically aimed at fighting vampires and werewolves. After what happened to them, is there any other path they could follow? Not really.

I thoroughly liked Lily and Leo. Lily’s got a strong personality, and a definite ability to fall back on her feet. Even though she gets discouraged at times, she doesn’t let this stop her, and she doesn’t give in to throwing pity-parties for herself, not for more than a couple of minutes, which is always pleasant to see, in my opinion, in a character. She also has special skills, but I was glad to see that the author didn’t make them *that* special in the end. She doesn’t get to save the day all by herself, and she’s far from being the only one with such abilities; this makes that plot point more believable. As for Leo, at first, I feared for his role in the story, wondering if he’d just be some uninteresting sidekick—because the kid *is* skilled, for sure, and he can pack a handful just as well as Lily can. I also feared what was in store for him. Until that moment, I hoped he’d get to find a way out. When I realized there wasn’t any, I must admit I shed a tear for him. Be awed. This very seldom happens.

The other characters were also enjoyable. Abbie does come off as unpleasant at first, but it’s clear that she is a good person, too, and that she doesn’t hesitate to act. The B-Team (no, really, this *is* a play on words on the A-Team, isn’t it? I can’t shake that feeling off!) is made of awesome, and I liked their take on events, how they always did their best to do what felt right to them. Their boldness and inventiveness roped me in (the way they tackle the rescue operation in Sneaker City was just so great!), and I could easily feel their sense of camaraderie, the strong bonds they managed to form among them, the instinct they had to stick to each other now matter the circumstances.

And what about the story itself? I quickly was drawn into its pace: not too slow, packed with action, but not too fast either. Events fold into each other in a logical way; we get to see that every action has its consequences, and that the characters have to deal with those, make their decisions, and then live up to those decisions in the end. I don’t know if there will be a sequel to this novel: the ending could very well stand for itself the way it is, or open up towards a second book. What’s sure is that if there is one, I will definitely pick it.

Yzabel / June 28, 2012

Review: The Sin Collector

The Sin Collector (Book 1)The Sin Collector by Jessica Fortunato

My rating: [rating=3]

(Book read and reviewed for {Read It & Reap 72} in the Shut Up And Read group.)

Liliana is a Sin Collector, an immortal human-like being with the ability to divest a dying person from her sins, so that swhe can find peace in death. However, her kin cannot be in the presence of each other, for fear of suffering terrible pain due to the weight of the sins they’ve absorbed; and so she’s been living on her own for the best of 120 years. Until another Collector tells her that all she’s been believing in until now was all but a lie…

This novel is packed with interesting ideas, which is what drew me to it in first place. The concept of eating someone else’s sins to bring them peace was intriguing, all the more so that it raises questions such as “what about people who’d deserve to pay for their sins?”. Liliana is overall a strong character, who takes the reins of her own life, doesn’t let other people act for her, is trying to do the best she can with the terrible task and power she’s been given, and tries to keep a cool head when faced with hard facts. The tension between some of the characters is efficiently kept up, through events as well as through their behaviours and the palpable mystery that surrounds them. Also, the antagonists’ point of view and aim is, in a way, understandable, and I felt that there was more behind this than just a matter of ‘being righteous’.

Some things I unfortunately found to be a little annoying in this story. For instance, while Liliana’s behaviour is usually positive, she sometimes struck me as having disproportionate reactions, that didn’t fit a 120-year-old woman (sure, she looks like she’s 20, but having lived so long and led such a peculiar life, shouldn’t she be more level-headed, and not react like she was indeed ‘only’ 20?). Recurrent punctuation problems were a minor flaw, but one that tended to be jarring all the same. I didn’t fully get the relationship between Liliana and her mentor—what happens isn’t really in tune with what the reader’s presented with at first, and so it felt quite odd in the end. Finally, the story being a short one, a lot of details were left in the dark; maybe more will be revealed in the series’ next novel, but in the meantime, I’d still have liked to learn more about the process of sin-collecting, about how the Collectors got to exist in the first place—in other words: more about what seemed to me to be the main theme of the book when I got it.

All in all, I enjoyed “The Sin Collector”, and am torn between giving it 3 stars or 4. In the end, I’ll keep it at 3, but I’m positive the author can and will do more with the next part. The promises her world and characters hold are strong and very much present.