young adult Archives - Page 13 of 19

Yzabel / April 3, 2014

Review: Script Kiddie

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Jan Rose no longer steals data from the old computers she recycles. She doesn’t need to. As the newest member of the police department’s High Tech Crime Unit, the laptop of a murderer has landed on her desk. Her job: to profile and expose a killer.

But that’s not all.

A creep lurks in the shadows, stalking a friend, and Jan must stop him before the hunt turns deadly. The clock counts down for Jan to save her friend, her job, her boyfriend–maybe even her life.

Review:

[I was sent a copy by the author, as part of my being approved by NetGalley to review book #3, in exchange for an honest opinion. While there was no condition involving writing a review for this one, I still decided to do it.]

I read Assured Destruction in 2013, and really liked it, though much to my shame, I failed to keep track of when the next installments were published. This second volume I found just as enjoyable as the first one, mainly for similar reasons. With each chapter, I wanted to know what was coming next.

After her stint in book 1, Jan, the main character, is still in dire straits, having to balance school, the store, her mother’s illness, Peter’s arrival in their lives, her new relationship with Jonny, and the many hours of community service she owes to the police. Sure, she can stil somewhat rely on Shadownet to vent out, but mostly she’s now confronted to more than she can chew, and frustration’s building up.

Characters & plot:

I like Jan. As a character, she has a lot of potential, some of which she lives up to, and some that still leaves room for improvement. She’s far from perfect; she commits mistakes; sometimes she’s too proud for her own good and doesn’t realise what she’s getting herself into until it’s too late. I guess her fatal flaw would be hubris, combined to her problems to cope with the more social aspects of life. She fancies herself a hacker, but is soon brought back to reality. She imagines her community service as an open door to be acknowledged as part of the police, but of course reality is harsher, and soon she’s reminded she’s still just a kid in many ways (don’t expect cop drama here, and a teenager being propelled as star of the detective show—which wouldn’t be too believable anyway). Her eagerness and overconfidence when it comes to computers/networks land her in trouble.

However, she also tries to fix things and help. When she’s humbled by people who know more than her (and who knows everything at 16!), she accepts her shortcomings and strive to get better. She also shows a lot of courage, involving herself in person—not because she’s too stupid to live (although her mistakes could get her killed), but because she genuinely wants to save other people, while knowing that waiting isn’t an option.

I also appreciated how her relationship with Jonny was portrayed, because it’s light on the romance part. The events of the book unfold on roughly one week, and Jan is very busy… so busy that she can’t keep up with having a boyfriend and doing “what it takes” to keep him. Now, considering what happens, I found this understandable. She’s worried about her role regarding the police, about missing school, about being wrongly accused of hacking, about her mother whose health isn’t great… I can understand that. I can understand a person being unable to keep up, and I think I would have held it against Jan if she had put everything to the back of her mind to be with Jonny all the time and play lovey-dovey, the way it happens too often. I can’t say she always knows how to keep her priorities straight (the carding case is a good example), but that part fits with her personality.

Last but not least, what’s going on with Peter is intriguing. On the one hand, I can understand Jan’s wariness when it comes to this man: he’s new in their lives, and with all the problems the store is facing, of course Jan is going to think he’s up to something. Overall, he’s sweet, caring, understanding, he tries to help her, as if he was doing his best to get her to accept him… Too good to be true? Perhaps he’s just that: a man who loves her mother and wants to earn his place in the daughter’s life as well (fast, considering how bad Tina’s health is). Or perhaps he’s something else. Or more than simply that.

The tech:

I already liked the computer/tech aspect in the previous book, and I still like it here. What happens in Script Kiddy is actually good lessons for teenagers (and for anyone not internet-savvy, for that matter), but not presented as such. They’re integrated within the flow of the story, while dealing with real problems: phishing, how wireless devices can be a downfall, internet predators, and so on.

The way procedures and technology in general are described is also easy to understand. Well, it’s easy for me, as I know enough (though I’m certainly not a specialist), but I think anyone would understand what’s going on. Some things made me frown at first, and think “why is this explained?”; but not everyone knows what IRC is, after all.

Problem?:

A few things bothered me; not enough to prevent me from enjoying the story, but I still feel I should mention them. The murderer’s laptop was one of them: would the police really hand evidence to Jan, let her take it out of the precinct? This I found unbelievable (and considering what happens with it next, it should’ve tipped her off). Also, at times Jan felt just a tad bit immature when it came to the problems in her life, mainly her mother. On the other hand, I can also envision her as the kind of girl who would cope by shutting off and/or focusing on different things for a while, so I’m not completely sure I can chalk that to sheer immaturity, or to the kind of slightly neurotic persona she seems to be developing. There’s just so much going on that at some point, the girl’s doomed to break.

Those put aside, this second novel in the series was really a page-turner, and a good read for me.

Yzabel / March 28, 2014

Review: Shattered Veil

Shattered Veil by Tracy E. Banghart

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

When everything that defines you is stripped away, who do you become?

For Aris, a talented wingjet pilot, war means sacrificing everything: her home, her name, her face—and the one promise she swore she’d never break.

In the small village of Lux, everyone flies wingjets, but nobody flies them like Aris Haan. When she’s not dancing through the skies, she’s spending every minute with Calix, whom she’s loved since childhood. They plan to Promise, but instead he is sent to defend their dominion against a bloody invasion. Determined not to lose him, Aris follows, joining an underground network of women inside the male-only military. Using secret technology that allows her to pass as a man, she becomes “Aristos”, a Flyer in a search-and-rescue unit.

As Aris grows stronger on the battlefield and more comfortable in her guise as Aristos, her personal mission becomes less and less clear. When she and her enigmatic commander, Major Vidar, uncover an astonishing conspiracy that could destroy everything, she must make a choice that will determine not only the fate of her heart, but the future of her dominion.

Review:

[I got an eARC from netGalley some time ago, in exchange for an honest review. In the meantime, the book was officially published, so maybe my version isn’t up-to-date anymore, though.]

This book turned out to be a very good surprise for me. I had read two other novels by the same author, and while I’d certainly not call them bad, they just didn’t really “click” with me. However, I sensed that was probably due to my being somewhat jaded with similar stories, more than to any writing fault; when I read the blurb for Shattered Veil, I thought that maybe this story would do it for me.

Well, it did.

The novel is based on the classical girl-posing-as-a-boy theme, and I liked the way it progressed about it. First, the technology used to do so felt believable to me: more than just binding your breasts and hope that nobody finds out, and less than a perfect disguise, which left room for accidents to happen. (Basically—not a spoiler, as this is revealed early enough—it’s a holographic technology that makes one’s features look more male, but what’s under, curves included, remains the same, and the women still have to talk, walk, behave in as “manly” a way as possible. It’s not just a free pass allowing them to look like whatever they want. The people in charge also take many details into account, including pairing girls together, so that they won’t be found out by a genuine male bunk mate.)

Second, Aris, the main female character, evolved in a way I enjoyed. Scouted by a pilot who saw her amazing flying skills and thought she’d be a great asset to the army, she decides to take up on the offer… for the wrong reason: finding Calix, the boy she loves, and who’s been enrolled in the army. This was her only goal at first, perhaps more potent a motivator for her than her love of flying and the prospect of becoming a pilot, too. This was an annoying goal in my eyes; not that love in itself is bad, of course, but considering the scope of the war, and what might have been going on behind the scenes, it just felt… small. However, Aris doesn’t stop there, and along the course of the story, realises that there’s so much more to this than just being with Calix. There’s more to the world—and more to herself, the girl who was always somewhat coddled in her village because she was left with a limp after a fever.

Another great character in that regard was Dianthe. We don’t see her much, but that woman was definitely the no-bullshit type I appreciate greatly. From the beginning, she treats Aris as a human being, not as a frail girl, making her undergo training—probably what she would have needed back home in order to strengthen her muscles and have her limp less (considering that wasn’t a problem in the army later, it stands to logic that the lack of proper exercise in Aris’s life prior to joining the troops didn’t help). She doesn’t want to hear whining, she scoffs at the girl’s motives, but since those motives can carry her so far, she still gives her an opportunity to be recruited as a pilot, disguised as a man thanks to the “diatous veil” technology. Dianthe was an empowering figure, the first one who really put Aris on the path of becoming her own person, and not the image of her reflected in her parents’ and friends’ eyes.

And Aris definitely grows up. As she spends more and more time in the army, as she befriends other soldiers, including the girl who bunks with her, she starts to open up to other possibilities and opportunities, even though she must seize them under a false identity. She starts to see the bigger picture; to consider her own importance in the Search and Rescue team as someone who saves lives; to discover what she really wants to do; and to accept that it may not be what she wanted in the beginning.

Another good thing in this novel: it was light on the romance. It could’ve easily led to a love triangle, but it didn’t, and I was glad for that. The country’s at war, Aris does her job as a pilot, there’s no nonsense here about dilly-dallying about which love interest to pick (I really don’t like when the stakes are high, but the hero/ine wastes time on romance and clearly can’t prioritise). Aris does prioritise, on top of growing as a person, and that’s why she’s great. Granted, there were a couple of things that made me snort (like that moment when she and her mate talk of Aris’s dream about one of the officers, and one says something like “I haven’t felt like a girl in a really long time”—as if talking about men was a really defining feature of being a girl) but fortunately, such moments were few and far between.

One thing I would’ve liked to see more of, though, was the world-building. The world itself isn’t too hard to grasp (five dominions, each governed by an elected “Ward”), and the sci-fi aspect is light, so it won’t rebuke people who aren’t keen on hard science fiction. There’s a slight dystopian element, in that people are Selected into specific work areas when they become adults, and can’t leave them (being Unselected means very few places will hire you, and so on); also, the Military sector doesn’t allow women in, because of an obsolete law nobody ever cared to repel. I guess I would’ve liked to see more development on that side, as well as on geopolitics as a whole, to shed more light on the Ward of Ruslana subplot. (That subplot made sense and was well-used; I just like to know more in general, to get a proper grasp on a country/world when such a setting is concerned.) And maybe also some more information on how exactly women managed to stay in the army: they used variations on their real names (Aris Haan –> Aristos Haan), so how was this covered? Was some kind of “citizen database” tampered with? (I did say I like knowing more, didn’t I?)

This book is definitely worth reading in my opinion, especially for how it allows its main female character (and others) to walk a road of their own choosing, instead of staying in the little boxes society has put them into.

Yzabel / March 26, 2014

Review: Dark Metropolis

Dark Metropolis by Jaclyn Dolamore

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Sixteen-year-old Thea Holder’s mother is cursed with a spell that’s driving her mad, and whenever they touch, Thea is chilled by the magic, too. With no one else to contribute, Thea must make a living for both of them in a sinister city, where danger lurks and greed rules.
Thea spends her nights waitressing at the decadent Telephone Club attending to the glitzy clientele. But when her best friend, Nan, vanishes, Thea is compelled to find her. She meets Freddy, a young, magnetic patron at the club, and he agrees to help her uncover the city’s secrets-even while he hides secrets of his own.

Together, they find a whole new side of the city. Unrest is brewing behind closed doors as whispers of a gruesome magic spread. And if they’re not careful, the heartless masterminds behind the growing disappearances will be after them, too.

Perfect for fans of Cassandra Clare, this is a chilling thriller with a touch of magic where the dead don’t always seem to stay that way.

Review:

[I got an ARC through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. The book not being released yet, some things might be liable to change by the time it hits the shelves.]

3.5 stars. I had my qualms with this novel, but overall it had just the right amount of tension and mystery going to keep me wanting to turn the pages. And, of course, it’s got necromancy. I am always biased towards necromancy. Nothing can go wrong with necro—wait, what am I saying?

Though inspired from Metropolis, I found it to be able to stand on its own, through its mix of 1930-ish atmosphere and magic, the latter not exactly of the nice kind (even the Binding magic has its nasty side-effects). Some scenes bordered on gory and/or disturbing, and could scare younger readers, but they’re also tempered with an overall glitzy darkness, if this makes sense. We’re not given a lot of world-building, only general facts, such as the war that happened a few years ago, food shortages, people having to work in some mysterious factory, the government hiding things; I think this may or may not be a problem depending on the reader. It still worked for me, because it was reminiscent of the historical period that inspired the novel (late 1920-early 1930s Germany), and the feeling I got from this was more important than the absolute need to know everything about that world. Although I would like to know more about what exactly has been happening behind the scenes in other places than the one shown here; maybe in the next volume?

The characters were likeable, but not exceptional. I had the feeling that they were glossed over in parts, and that some events occurred too fast for them to really develop bonds. Freddy and Thea, mainly, barely meet a couple of times before he tells her everything, and this wasn’t so believable. I also found myself rooting for Nan and Sigi more than anyone else, even though Nan is barely mentioned in the blurb and we’re somewhat mistakingly led to believe Thea’s the main heroine. On the other hand, they had touching back stories, and I was still glad to see some sort of closure for them. It made for a bittersweet ending, but I wouldn’t have seen a happy-ever-ending for such a novel.

As for the plot, I found the idea to bring back dead people to life through necromancy brilliant; it’s so simple, it makes so much sense, and at the same time, it’s just so horribly fascinating that you don’t know in the end if you want to hug those people or put a bullet through their eyes, out of mercy, that is. I liked that there was a severe drawback to it, that they needed the serum to function; no magic should go without its price to pay, and Freddie himself was paying it without even knowing it. The other thing I liked about his magic was how it was in fact a good magic, one made to appease people, and not to create undead armies. Arabella’s sacrifice was moving, and helped show that Freddie could also do beautiful things using his powers.

I would however argue that things unfolded a little too quickly and easily in the last part of the book; I would’ve expected more spunk and deviousness from the villains, who went down too fast to my liking. I guess this ties with my comments about events when I mentioned the characters. I’m also rather puzzled about the whole “Guardian of Fate” business; it seemed a bit like a deus ex machina, and could’ve deserved a slightly different approach.

Dark Metropolis is, as said, not devoid of flaws; but its atmosphere and its take on necromancy definitely allowed me to enjoy it.

Yzabel / March 24, 2014

Review: Death Whispers

Death Whispers by Tamara Rose Blodgett

My rating: [rating=0]

Summary:

Almost fifteen-year-old Caleb Hart is a Cadaver-Manipulator in the year 2025. When teens receive a government-sanctioned pharmaceutical cocktail during school, paranormal abilities begin manifesting… making the teens more powerful than the adults.

After Caleb discovers he has the rare, Affinity for the Dead, he must do whatever it takes to hide it from a super-secret government agency whose goal is exploitation.

Caleb seeks refuge in his new girlfriend, Jade, until he realizes that she needs as much protection from her family, as he does from the government.

Suddenly, Caleb finds that hiding his ability while protecting Jade and his friends is a full time job; can he escape the government, protect Jade and lose the bullies that are making him miserable?

Review:

DNFed at 42%. I can’t trudge through it any longer, not without booze, and I guess this is a sure sign I shouldn’t go on.

I wanted to like this story so, so badly. You can’t imagine. Necromancy is exactly the kind of magic (or, more generally, power) that fascinates me, for all the possibilities it offers and questions it raises, and from the blurb, I thought I would love this story. Even the acronym for Caleb’s ability (AFTD – Affinity For The Dead) got my attention.

But I just can’t, for the following reasons:

Juvenile prose, for starters. Granted, the narrator is supposed to be 13-14, However, the jumbled thoughts, run-on sentences and limited vocabulary still made it hard to go through the story. Some sentences were also really weird:

“Mom liked to notice me growing by saying my eyeballs were “taller” than whatever random day she had noticed before.”

Huh?

Too much useless dialogue and everyday life scenes. Those needed serious trimming. I don’t demand action and only action, but I really don’t need to know about every breakfast food, teenage thought, phone (sorry, pulse) conversation, and so on. There’s a fine line to tread between “characters who’re still schooled yet are never seen in class/doing homework” and “detailing every school day”. Here, it was just too much of the latter. On top of it, Caleb’s observations weren’t particularly interesting.

Annoying characters, especially Jonesy. Jonesy wasn’t funny nor clever. He was just the kind of moronic teenage boy who’s probably going to earn a Darwin Award someday. From the start, I just couldn’t stand him. With such friends, who still needs enemies?

And then, then: Too Stupid To Live characters. The whole lot, adults included.

The premise seems to be about Caleb not wanting to end up like the one guy who had exactly the same abilities as him (basically, this would mean being stripped of all his freedom and human rights, and be used as a government tool). So why, why does he have to blab about it to everyone, and show off his power? In the most idiotic ways possible?

He faints in biology class due to “hearing” all the dead frogs. However, he doesn’t want the two school bullies to think he’s a sissy. What does he do? Take them to the local cemetery and raises some random bloke from his grave.
The guys are bullies. They never miss an opportunity to taunt him. Worst people ever to show off to.

He raises a dead dog in the middle of the street. With plenty of witnesses around.

“A cop’s interest in our lives couldn’t be a good thing, whatever angle you look from.”

Oh, really?
Then why did you tell said cop about his being AFTD?

“Garcia looked at Mom thoughtfully. […] I decided to man-up, I wasn’t little anymore.
I broke the silence. “I have Affinity for The Dead.””

A cop. Not a bad guy overall, but still, someone whose duty involves reporting people like Caleb:

“If I find out you’re a Cadaver-Manipulator, we are lawfully bound to report that to the proper authorities.”

And it’s not only Caleb. It’s everyone.

Jonesy doesn’t seem to grasp the basic concept of “talking about Caleb’s abilities could mean the government finding out”. Of course, he flaps his mouth in front of Caleb’s parents and the cop:

“Jonesy piped in, “I still wanna know what happened to the dog.””

(Caleb did a mental facepalm; so did I.)

The two bullies? They don’t rat Caleb out. Seriously, if I had been a villain, and disliked some guy like they seemed to dislike him, I’d have used that golden opportunity to get rid of him.

His parents: they’re supposed to be the growns-up. His father’s the one who mapped up the whole human genome, thus paving the way to the tests and injection that would later awaken latent abilities in teenagers. Like Parker (the first AFTD). Like Caleb. I expected much more from them. They didn’t deliver.
Example: they want to test his abilities. The best course of action they devise is to take him to the cemetery to talk to his great-grandmother, and potentially, raise her from her grave (by the time it happens, they already suspect he’s not just the basic AFTD kid who can merely see and talk to ghosts).

“Mom began, ‘We’ve thought about it and decided that after this whole mess is over,’ her smile said the mess wasn’t my fault […]”

I’m sorry to break the news to you, Caleb, but yes, it is. It is your fault. At this point, you’re too stupid to be left running free, because who knows what harm you could do, considering the dumb ideas you and your pals could still come up with?

A wonder he hasn’t been discovered/ratted out already. I won’t find out on my own, though. I’m giving up.

Yzabel / March 18, 2014

Review: The House of Hades

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

At the conclusion of The Mark of Athena, Annabeth and Percy tumble into a pit leading straight to the Underworld. The other five demigods have to put aside their grief and follow Percy’s instructions to find the mortal side of the Doors of Death. If they can fight their way through the Gaea’s forces, and Percy and Annabeth can survive the House of Hades, then the Seven will be able to seal the Doors both sides and prevent the giants from raising Gaea. But, Leo wonders, if the Doors are sealed, how will Percy and Annabeth be able to escape?

They have no choice. If the demigods don’t succeed, Gaea’s armies will never die. They have no time. In about a month, the Romans will march on Camp Half-Blood. The stakes are higher than ever in this adventure that dives into the depths of Tartarus.

Review:

I liked this one better than The Mark of Athena, though I still keep finding flaws in it—so no higher ranking from me here.

What I liked:

* Nico. I’ve always had a soft spot for the poor kid, who sure wasn’t the strongest demigod in the Percy Jackson series itself, went through his lot of crap, and ended up so lost, confused and convinced he couldn’t trust others, that he did everything alone… thus ending up even more isolated. But he’s strong in his own way—I guess walking alone for so long does make you grow no matter what. In this book, we also get to see at last something that had been plaguing him, and I just found that great (even though I have my qualms about it, too; see below). You know what? I want THIS GUY, yeah, the son of Hades, the one with the permanent circles under the eyes and gloomy aura of doom around him, to get his love interest in the end. I know it’ll never happen, but trust me, if I were into writing fanfiction instead of stories about my own characters and worlds, I’d do exactly that for him.

* Bob. (Now I need to read the Demigod Files, because I had absolutely no idea who he was, and wondered if I had missed a chapter somewhere in a previous book.) Also Damasen. I found it really interesting that those characters not being total evil guys happened in Tartarus, the very pit of despair, and a hellish setting to boot. It gets to show that the best can happen in the darkest moments. Anyway, how couldn’t I like a Titan janitor with a broom-o’-doom and a half-skeleton calico cat? (Granted, I tend to like things that are over the top, at least from time to time. Especially in darker settings.)

* The darker setting. As much as I liked Percy’s levity in the first series, the heroes are grown-up now, so it makes sense to see them confront darker events and monsters.

* Leo and Calypso.[Leo and Calypso. (hide spoiler)] A relationship I didn’t expect, and that was a nice break from the old Percabeth or Jasper (Pison?). Though it removed some tension from the Frank/Hazel pairing, but it’s not like Leo/Hazel would’ve happened anyway. I guess.

What I didn’t like:

* Nico. Oh why, why couldn’t we have chapters from his PoV from the beginning? Sure, it would’ve spoilt the bomb, but… but… I’m sure he’d have been more interesting than Jason. (Who, by the way, accepts the Big Reveal about him a little too easily. It’s a nice lesson in tolerance, but it feels exactly like that, like a lesson, and not as a 100% human reaction.)

* Jason is still his bland self. I’ve never been able to relate to him, and I still can’t here. So, all right, the guy’s got trouble conciling his Roman training with what he lived with the Greek demigods, and doesn’t know where he belongs anymore… but it’s just not working for me.

* It’s the same old formula, and even though I liked it in the beginning, I’d also appreciate seeing something else at some point. Also, nobody dies. They go to freaking Tartarus, yet nobody dies. No pressure. No tension. No worry on my part about who’s going to make it and who will be left behind. Although I admit that if in the next book, the one who dies is Nico, I’ll be one very, very frustrated girl.

* The enemies are as dumb as ever, and always get tricked the same way. I suppose it’s the only way, considering brute strength would never work against giants and immortal monsters, but… OK, Nyx. Come on? Nyx. *facepalm*

Yzabel / March 17, 2014

Review: TimeRiders

TimeRiders by Alex Scarrow

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Liam O’Connor should have died at sea in 1912.

Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010.

Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2029.

Yet moments before death, someone mysteriously appeared and said, ‘Take my hand . . .’

But Liam, Maddy and Sal aren’t rescued. They are recruited by an agency that no one knows exists, with only one purpose – to fix broken history. Because time travel is here, and there are those who would go back in time and change the past.

That’s why the TimeRiders exist: to protect us. To stop time travel from destroying the world . . .

Review:

I was reading this one for a group read, but since I had time to finish it today instead of dumbly waiting for tomorrow to roll in, well…

I’m not sure if it should be a 1* or 2* for me. Let’s say 2, for the Terminator shout-outs, which made me smile (I watched T1 and T2 when I was in middle school, and I still have fond memories of those), for the couple of good things I liked, and because I didn’t actually want to throw the book through the window. In fact, I think it could be nice for a younger audience—maybe 7th graders—because if you don’t pay attention to the plot holes, well, the story has the potential to be a fast, entertaining read (though a bit frightening and gruesome in parts for the really young readers out there).

The characters weren’t particularly well-developed, but neither were they insufferable, and I appreciated the plot not being bogged down by the useless romance I see rearing its head in too many YA novels. However, the plot holes are what sunk this book for me. It’s dealing with time travel, a very, very tricky subject, and one that is really not so easy to master. As soon as it enters the game, it brings its lot of questions: what’s the science behind it, what about paradox, what happens if a character meets him/herself from the past, and so on. Unfortunately, TimeRiders didn’t deal well with that in my eyes.

Here’s an example: the characters live in a sort of “bubble”, from which they observe the same two days in time. Within the bubble, they age normally, but every couple of days, the world around them is reset, and reverts back to what it was at the beginning of their observation period. One of the characters’ role is to stay outside, keeping an eye for whatever may be different, a sure sign that a shift has occured somewhere in history, and report it to the others so that the team’s analyst can locate the problem, and the actual timr-travellers can go there to fix it. However, there’s no explanation as to why this character isn’t affected by huge time shifts. At some point, the whole world is destroyed, so her parents can’t have been born to give birth to her later, so why does she still exist? That kind of problem is never really addressed nor explained. I would’ve been content with something as simple as “once you’re plucked out of time, you can’t be affected by shifts anymore for [insert whatever reason]”, but I don’t even remember seeing that.

Another thing I wondered about was the whole time agency business. The teenagers are never introduced to it, except through what Foster tells them about it; no other team is ever seen or even mentioned; and I had the feeling that it didn’t really exist, that those three kids and their old mentor were the only ones in the world. Maybe this will be explained in book 2 or 3, I don’t know; still, considering this is the book in which the characters are trained for their missions in time, it would’ve made sense to give us more information about that, to make us actually hear about other teams. (Again, I could’ve gone with a short explanation, maybe a rule such as “each time is assigned to a given time period and forbidden to talk to the others, for fear of time paradox.” Whatever.)

Not the worst story I’ve read so far, but consider it a 1.5 on my scale, not more.

Yzabel / March 14, 2014

Review: Emilie and the Sky World

Emilie and the Sky World by Martha Wells

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

A Girl’s Own Adventure in the spirit of Jules Verne.

When Emilie and Daniel arrive in Silk Harbor, Professor Abindon, an old colleague of the Marlendes, warns them that she’s observed something strange and potentially deadly in the sky, a disruption in an upper air aether current. But as the Marlendes investigate further, they realize it’s a ship from another aetheric plane. It may be just a friendly explorer, or something far more sinister, but they will have to take an airship into the dangerous air currents to find out.

Emilie joins the expedition and finds herself deep in personal entanglements, with an angry uncle, an interfering brother, and an estranged mother to worry about as well as a lost family of explorers, the strange landscapes of the upper air, and the deadly menace that inhabits the sky world.

Review:

(I got an ARC copy from NetGalley. At the time, the book wasn’t published yet, but it took me some time to get to it. Some things may have changed between the version I have, and the actual, final version.)

One thing I have to get out of the way: I didn’t read Emilie and the Hollow World, the first installment in this series. Although each story seems to be self-contained, it was obvious that some elements from book #1 permeated book #2, partly through brief recapping here and there; and so I may or may have not missed a few things.

This story follows a classical adventure format, its world and themes reminiscent of classical works as well (the—lovely—cover, among other things, made me think of the old Jules Vernes books I had when I was a child). Airships, explorers, scientists with a dash of magic to their craft, and young people wanting part of the big adventure: these can and will certainly appeal to a younger audience. Bonus points, also, for the aether-ship creature, who truly was alien (not humanoid, as in too many novels), and for including the communication/language barrier. I tend to be highly skeptical of “aliens” with whom communicating is awfully easy in every aspect.

On the other hand, I found the story easily predictable (the missing expedition mentioned in the first chapters of the book was kind of a giveaway), and I think even younger readers would have the same feeling. The chapters leading to getting into the aether currents were too slow to my liking; I guess I wanted the Big Adventure to start faster—that’s why I pick adventure stories. (As I mentioned, I didn’t read book #1, but I suppose someone who has would want things to start faster?)

But those are smaller qualms: after all, sometimes we just want predictable, and in such genres, it’s not that much of a problem per se. The real issue for me were the characters, whom I just didn’t connect with: they felt brushed over, shown on the surface only, when clearly something deeper was going on for some of them, and I would’ve liked to see more in that regard. Emilie struck me as too mean and petulant regarding her brother; granted, they seemed to share history, but they’re still young (Efrain must be, what, 10?), and it was weird, because they somehow felt like they shared twenty years of resentment. As a result, Emilie wasn’t particularly likeable—at least, not like the adventurous, smart and resourceful girl I imagined her to be when I started reading. Same with the Professor and Miss Marlende: the tension between them was never really explained (though I could feel very early who they were), and it would’ve been interesting to know how exactly things became that way.

In itself, it was a fairly nice story, but one I’ll probably forget fast.

Yzabel / March 13, 2014

Review: Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Supervillain

Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m a Supervillain by Richard Roberts

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Penelope Akk wants to be a superhero. She’s got superhero parents. She’s got the ultimate mad science power, filling her life with crazy gadgets even she doesn’t understand. She has two super-powered best friends. In middle school, the line between good and evil looks clear.

In real life, nothing is that clear. All it takes is one hero’s sidekick picking a fight, and Penny and her friends are labeled supervillains. In the process, Penny learns a hard lesson about villainy: She’s good at it.

Criminal masterminds, heroes in power armor, bottles of dragon blood, alien war drones, shapeshifters and ghosts, no matter what the super powered world throws at her, Penny and her friends come out on top. They have to. If she can keep winning, maybe she can clear her name before her mom and dad find out.

Review:

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

I found this book to be a very entertaining and refreshing read, focused on the characters’ adventures, and likely something I’d have thoroughly enjoyed in middle school—well, I did enjoy it now, after all. In my opinion, it definitely reaches its aim of providing younger readers with likeable characters, all with their specific traits. Penny, the mad scientist, whose power works in spurts of genius, and whose voice throughout the story I quickly grew fond of. Claire, cute but also resourceful, especially when it comes to using connections to the team’s advantage. Ray, who simply was, well, classy, and whose take on circumstances was definitely contagious. At the same time, I could tell they were kids, reacting like kids getting powers, and wanting to have fun with those before it was time to get all serious and act like grown-ups.

Paradoxically, the fact they were kids made the community’s reaction to their presence somewhat more believable: with heroes and villains alike used to fighting each other with magic and “adult” powers, throwing in kid-like actions in the middle can be unsettling, and difficult to predict. The Inscrutable Machine did exactly that. As for the heroes/villain community itself, your mileage may vary on the “believability scale”. Personally, I found it mostly made sense in its own way: with both sides having super powers, at some point you have to reach some kind of agreement to avoid really wreaking havoc with no one the winner at the end. (That, and the alien invasion in the past, which seemed to have forced them to cooperate.)

Another likeable side of the story was how it really focused on its premise, a.k.a. teenagers accidentally labelled as supervillains, then deciding to play the part until they could “see the errors of their ways and become heroes”. I’ve read too many books that start off with something interesting like that, then veer off toward teenage drama/love stories, with those not being the reason why I picked them in the first place. There is a touch of romantic interest here, but it’s subtle, and played in a somewhat comical way, so it agreed with me in the end.

The few qualms I had about this novel were mostly related to the adults’ reactions. While some of them were understandable (Brian being too focused on his own science, too much of an air-head when it comes to relationships; the Minx as a playful, secret-loving woman who found fun in what her kid was going through; Lucyfar, who openly plays on her ambiguity as a villain who occasionally does good, so she’s left alone…), I thought the Audit, on the other hand, was too oblivious to what was happening. It would’ve worked if she had had a different personality, but I wondered why she, among all the others, didn’t catch that something was going the wrong way? Perhaps this could have been played a little differently. I also wondered about Ray’s family: he seemed frightened of their reaction, and so I wish we had had more of a glimpse into that, more explanations. (Unless this book’s meant to have a sequel, in which case this question might get an answer later, but I don’t know about that yet.)

I’d give this story a 3.5 stars, because of those problems that kept nagging at me. However, I’m still rounding it to a 4. I had fun, plain and simple; I think younger readers would have fun, too; and so I think this has to factor in.

Yzabel / March 11, 2014

Review: Dear Killer

Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell

My rating:[usr 2]

Summary:

Rule One—Nothing is right, nothing is wrong.
Rule Two—Be careful.
Rule Three—Fight using your legs whenever possible, because they’re the strongest part of your body. Your arms are the weakest.
Rule Four—Hit to kill. The first blow should be the last, if at all possible.
Rule Five—The letters are the law.

Kit takes her role as London’s notorious “Perfect Killer” seriously. The letters and cash that come to her via a secret mailbox are not a game; choosing who to kill is not an impulse decision. Every letter she receives begins with “Dear Killer,” and every time Kit murders, she leaves a letter with the dead body. Her moral nihilism and thus her murders are a way of life—the only way of life she has ever known.

But when a letter appears in the mailbox that will have the power to topple Kit’s convictions as perfectly as she commits her murders, she must make a decision: follow the only rules she has ever known, or challenge Rule One, and go from there.

Katherine Ewell’s Dear Killer is a sinister psychological thriller that explores the thin line between good and evil, and the messiness of that inevitable moment when life contradicts everything you believe

Review:

(I got an ARC of this book courtesy of Edelweiss. The book being published by now, a few things may have changed, compared to the version I read.)

I can’t say I hated this novel, but it didn’t leave me with a strong impression either. I expected more darkness from Kit, more moral ambiguity; instead, I found a lot of little things that constantly challenged my suspension of disbelief.

I think the main issue for me was a pitfall a lot of stories about serial killers have to avoid: how to make the killer really dangerous, while also giving him/her flaws that would allow other people to catch him/her? Because, obviously, if the murderer’s so perfect nobody can ever uncover his/her true identity, there’s no challenge, no conflict, in terms of both plot and character development. This is where the story failed for me: Kit is “the Perfect Killer”, but the way she acts in the novel, it’s a wonder she wasn’t caught before. She befriends a Scotland Yard detective and almost immediately gives out information the police’s not supposed to know. She kills in her own school, and sets it up to make herself the only witness. She inserts herself into the investigation, goes back to the crime scenes, even lets one victim go free. She takes some care not to leave prints by using gloves all the time and not resorting to weapons that could be found… but she’s not too savvy when it comes to the more advanced forensic techniques.

Unbelievable, therefore, was the police’s incompetence. Everybody in London seems to know where the “Dear Killer”‘s mailbox is, but the police never found any lead. Kit’s signature are letters from the very people who asked her to kill, containing extremely valuable information about them and the victims; 50 murders later, how come none of those has ever led to a clue, how come the police hasn’t managed to get a confession allowing them to find the mailbox, if only by striking a bargain with a guilt-ridden “customer”? Also, Alex shouldn’t ever have allowed Kit on a crime scene, nor talked about the investigation. This works in Dexter because he’s already a member of the police force—but even Dexter’s presence on some scenes is questioned by his colleagues, when there aren’t any blood splatters to check, so if Dex can’t be there without rising suspicion, how can Kit, the teenager, whose only link with the police is the detective her mother once brought home for dinner?

Then, there’s the ambiguity of Kit’s position regarding her jobs. Is she really a serial killer, or a hired killer? Does she really off people because of some urges, or is she merely doing what her mother taught her, is she what she was brought up to be? Is her moral nihilism truly that, and does she even know where she stands? My qualms with those questions is that they were never really examined, and Kit’s actions and thoughts felt too random to really play a part in what could’ve been serious introspection. Once she says there’s no right nor wrong, and then she seems to believe she kills for justice, but the killing jobs she chooses to carry can’t be justified this way (one guy writes that he wants her to kill his fiancée, because he was involved in a hit-and-run, and now she wants him to confess to the police… so Kit kills the woman, no questions asked, when clearly “justice” would’ve been to get rid of the guy who had already taken a life). I would’ve find it more believable if she had questioned her choices on that level; she starts doing it with the one victim she lets go, but considering who her last victim is at the end, it might as well never have happened.

Kit’s relationship with her mother was probably what kept me reading: extremely unhealthy, riddled with her mom’s own madness. Mrs. Ward: a women who had married a certain man only so that she could be left alone, who had transferred her urges to kill onto her daughter, and basically shaped a kid into a monster. Maybe the idea of a teenage killer was a bit stretched, but it didn’t matter, because there was a reason behind it, and it was something I could go with (children find their first examples in their parents: what if the parents themselves are dysfunctional to the extreme?) Like a trainwreck, it was something I couldn’t help but watch, even though it was deeply unsettling, and just like with Kit’s moments of doubts about her killings, there was something interesting underneath it all, some deep questions to be asked; however, it wasn’t carried far enough in my opinion to shine through. In general, I found Kit’s thoughts and observations remained too much on the surface level, and what could’ve been character growth (acceptance, finding herself through her killings, different moral choices, whatever) only started happening, yet never went there.

Yzabel / March 8, 2014

Review: Alpha Goddess

Alpha Goddess by Amalie Howard

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

In Serjana Caelum’s world, gods exist. So do goddesses. Sera knows this because she is one of them.

A secret long concealed by her parents, Sera is Lakshmi reborn, the human avatar of an immortal Indian goddess rumored to control all the planes of existence. Marked by the sigils of both heaven and hell, Sera’s avatar is meant to bring balance to the mortal world, but all she creates is chaos.

A chaos that Azrath, the Asura Lord of Death, hopes to use to unleash hell on earth.

Torn between reconciling her past and present, Sera must figure out how to stop Azrath before the Mortal Realm is destroyed. But trust doesn’t come easy in a world fissured by lies and betrayal. Her best friend Kyle is hiding his own dark secrets, and her mysterious new neighbor, Devendra, seems to know a lot more than he’s telling.

Struggling between her opposing halves and her attraction to the boys tied to each of them, Sera must become the goddess she was meant to be, or risk failing … sacrificing the world she was born to protect.

Review:

(I got an ebook copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. This being an Advanced Reader Copy, some things in this novel are still liable to change before its publishing.)

I was mostly interested in this book because of Hindu mythology, something that I haven’t seen used in many stories so far. I only know the basics, so I can’t really tell if everything in Alpha Goddess is exact, or if the author changed a lot of things. I’m not sure I agree with the changes in spelling—why Asuras and Devas couldn’t stay the same, and why there’s a nekomata thrown in the lot, well, I don’t know. (Also, Xibalba is from Maya mythology; no idea either why it was included here.) However, the novel raised interesting questions about choice and redemption, about whether having Asura blood made you “evil” per se, or if you could still walk your own path, and I liked the kind of conundrums some of the characters (well, one of them, actually) had to go through, and what kind of answer he would find.

Another aspect that was a good change, in my opinion, was the love triangle. I’ll be open about that and admit I don’t like love triangles; most are badly written, unbelievable, and look more like the hype cliché to put in your book rather than something really relevant. There is a triangle here, but the nature of the people involved made it so that its outcome could be different: different avatars, different kinds of love, the ability to love one person with one part of one’s soul, yet also love another one with another part… This isn’t something I’ve seen so often—and it didn’t seem like an easy cop-out of “boy/girl gets both love interests”, because, well, it fits with the mythology (at least if I’ve grasped it properly).

The downside for me is that, in the end, the story didn’t click with me. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, it just felt like too many YA stories I’ve read in the past. (Perhaps I’m becoming fed up, and this book had the misfortune of happening at the wrong moment for me, so don’t discard it just because I’m the jaded type.) It uses a lot of the usual YA tropes/clichés. Good boy/bad boy. Girl who finds herself ugly, but is actually a beautiful goddess. Whiny character (Sera). A big secret nobody will tell her about (at first), even though not knowing probably endangers her more. High school drama and rejection (unneeded here, I think, as it didn’t bring anything to the story). Sera gets better in the second half, maybe a little too fast: I’d have liked to see a smoother transition from “clueless girl who doesn’t know who she is” to “badass, demon-ass-kicking warrior”, because that part seemed to come out of the blue. But at least she stopped whining, and did something, even encouraging other characters to less discussion and more action, so bonus point here.

I noted a few inconsistencies, too. Sera’s mother being called Sophia was weird. Some physical descriptions seemed to have been changed at some point, with a few instances of the former descriptions remaining (ARC, though, so this might have been corrected in the meantime).

As I said, I might be just too jaded. If you’re not used to YA with paranormal/supernatural aspects as a genre, you might like it better than I did; it wouldn’t be such a bad introduction to it. If you feel you’ve already read too many similar stories, though, maybe this one isn’t for you either. It’s not “bad”. It just didn’t click for me.

(Grade: “It’s OK”, a.k.a. 2* on Goodreads, 3* on Amazon.)