young adult Archives - Page 5 of 19

Yzabel / August 22, 2016

Review: The Vengeful Half

The Vengeful Half by Jaclyn Dolamore

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

Olivia might look human, but she’s grown up with a heavy secret: her mother is a potion-maker from a parallel world, the Hidden Lands.

Alfred is the blind, charismatic young heir to the illegal potions trade. When Mom is kidnapped by the magic dealers with whom she once made a bad bargain, Olivia has no choice but to trust Alfred’s offer of help. They travel to a strange new world of bootlegged American pop culture, lifelike doll people, and reincarnation. Alfred finds himself putting his position on the line to defend Olivia against his family’s conniving plans. Maybe he has morals…or maybe he’s just falling in love.

When Olivia escapes from an attack by a curiously familiar sorceress, she learns that potion dealers weren’t the only thing Mom was hiding from. Dark secrets lurk in Olivia’s past, and now Olivia must kill or be killed by the girl with whom she once shared everything…

Review:

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

This is one of those overdue reviews, since I’ve had this book on my tablet for quite a while. I remember requesting it partly because of its cover (the paperback one — by comparison, the Kindle cover on Amazon is pretty bland), which seemed quite ominous to me. What can I say, I’m weak when faced with a certain type of cover.

The plot was intriguing, for sure. A hidden world full of family secrets, alliances to be had, strange magic (the doll people and the potions), ancient feuds, revelations aplenty, and a hidden enemy who’s been bidding her time and is now bent on getting what she wants: possibly revenge… or something else? There’s almost too much going on at times. At first I thought it would be more a quest-like story, with Olivia going after her mother and braving danger to save her. It didn’t turn out like that, but that was alright, the kind of plot and intrigue it led to was pretty fine with me as well.

The characters: we have that girl, Olivia, who knows she’s from another world/civilisation, without having been brought up in it, which leaves room for showing this land to the reader, without necessarily having to explain *all* of it, since Olivia already knows part of it and we can dispense with. We have Alfred, rich heir and future boss to a crime family, who’s blind almost since birth and goes his way without whining about this—he’s used to it, he has trouble with some things but has found ways to cope. Alfred also has to constantly remind other people that he can do, not everything but a lot of things: a conundrum close, I think, to quite a few double standards going around disabled people (pitied and treated like children almost, or blamed for “not making enough efforts” by many, instead of being considered as human beings first and foremost…). There’s also Thessia, Alfred’s fiancée, who could have been a nasty bitch and/or a jealous whiner, especially since she fits the too-beautiful-to-be-true girl, and turns out to be an idealist, an activist, and, well, a fairly decent person to be around, even though she has her downside (Atlantean rich society seems to be hell-bent on having its girls marry rich heirs, and gods forbid they want to have a career of their own…).

So, all in all, a lot of interesting things here. Unfortunately, a lot more annoyed me, causing me not to enjoy this story in the end.

From the start, something kept nagging at me, and it took me a while to put my finger on it. At some point, the author mentioned when the story originated (more about that later), back when she was still a child or teenager; I think this was what I “felt” about it, for having gone myself through the same conundrum of taking a story I first created when I was 12 or so, and trying to trim it and make it something worth reading. This was something I found extremely hard to do, because what we perceive as wonderful plot twists and concepts when we’re younger aren’t necessarily good things to leave as is… yet “upgrading” them is easier said than done. And so, I had that strange feeling that I was reading something I might have written when I was younger, and my reaction to it was a little similar. It’s hard to explain. I could sum it up with “this feels like a very early work, and it needs more editing.”

Another thing that bothered me, when it comes to this theme of parallel/hidden worlds, is how close to ours the latter was, when a parallel world could pave the way to so many other things. Let me develop a bit more by giving a personal example: I grew up in France, with a lot of dubbed TV shows originating from the USA, and at the time I had that fascination for the USA. If I wrote a story, I set it in some imaginary US town. Not my home country, no, it wasn’t “good enough”: it had to be like the USA, feel like the USA, whatever. Obviously it didn’t occur to me at the time that Stephen King, for instance, set his stories in his country because that’s what he knew, and that I was under the impression everything was better there only because I hadn’t been exposed to shows from other countries. (Bear with me, I was 12-something.) And somehow, the way Atlantis people lived reminded me of this: their world felt like it hadn’t been so much evolving as trying to mimic Earth’s, and more specifically, well, you guess it. “Everything’s better if it looks like our world.” Kind of like being promised a walk in quaint little streets with exotic market stalls, and finding yourself in a mall instead—Atlanteans driving Ferraris didn’t exactly impress me. I’d stand with Olivia on that one, who was expecting a high fantasy world at first and found a place with chocolate and soda cans instead.

(To be fair, though, all this might still hold more appeal to a teenage audience than it did to me: I also remember thinking “those are plot devices/themes I would’ve used myself, since I loved them, when I was in my teens.” I had that thing going for telepathy and psychic powers in general, and parallel worlds, and “aliens/people with powers coming from those worlds to live hidden on Earth”. I seriously doubt I was the only one.)

Third annoying bit: the somewhat sexist, somewhat dismissive way a few characters tended to act. Alfred disappointed me towards the end when it came to Thessia (pretty assholish move to make if you ask me, and then she’s left to go away with the equivalent of “kthxbye see ya later, ah women, they always need some time to calm down huh”). Or what I mentioned above regarding heiresses only good enough to marry—any female character with a position/job of her own seemed to be either a villain or a reject/castaway/fugitive, as if no “proper woman” could hold her own. Although was pointed as backwards thinking, I felt a dichotomy, a certain hypocrisy in how it was mentioned, yet the people mentioning it still kept buying into the patriarchal model nonetheless.

Fourth: so many tropes. So, so many. You’ve got it all: pretty boy with a beautiful fiancée against which the main character feels so plain (but still becomes a love interest fairly quickly); people who were supposed to be dead but aren’t; telepathy/psychic powers being used and thrown in in vague descriptions, solving things a little too easily at times; mandatory love triangle; elite school in which talking to The Wrong Person will turn you into a black sheep, instantly, just add water. It felt like a soap opera at times, and since I’m not particularly keen on those, it didn’t help.

On the fence: the drawings, comic strips and short inserts. I didn’t care about the style, but I can certainly understand the appeal, and who would fault an author for including those and being enthusiastic about it? Not me! However, I think they disrupted the flow of the story in some cases, either by revealing too much about the characters at that specific point or by just being there in the middle (did we really need pictures of the various soda brands?). More annoying though were the written inserts: in between two chapters, we get a bit (twice!) about how the story was born. Not uninteresting, yet… this could and should be put at the end, otherwise it’s either disruptive or meant to be skipped, which would defeat the whole point.

Conclusion: could’ve been for me, but… nope, sorry.

Yzabel / August 17, 2016

Review: The Hypnotic City

The Hypnotic City by Andrea Berthot

My rating: [usr 3]

Blurb:

Philomena Blackwell survived a city plagued with monsters, the gilded cage of high society, and the rule of a heartless man… and she aims to leave it all behind.

It’s 1905, and London has finally been freed from Henry Jekyll’s terrible legacy – its people cured, its thirteen-year quarantine lifted. The world is waiting, and for a girl who dreams of being its most dazzling star, what could be more enticing than the bright lights of New York City?

She is drawn across the ocean like a moth to a flame, her heart set on proving that while she may be small on the outside, her soaring talent eclipses even Manhattan’s towering skyline. When she lands a big break, it seems as if the city is ready to fall under her spell – just as she seems to be falling for a handsome young stage manager. But is it her stage presence mesmerizing the audience, or something more sinister behind the scenes?

Philomena has always relied on her fierce will and fiery heart, but a new and more terrible danger lurks in the shadows of Broadway’s bright lights, and even a mind as determined as hers may not be immune to its seductive, insidious pull…

Review:

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

Although this sequel to “The Heartless City” is more of a standalone, I’d still recommend reading the first novel, as it will make understanding Philomena (and her relationship with her friends) better.

Philomena herself is a character I liked a lot in the previous book. As a young woman, almost a girl still, who grew up in an infested London and a slave of her household, just good enough to be married and have children as soon as she’d be of age, she could have been just any old secondary character, but let not her diminutive stature fool you: there’s fire and heart and willpower underneath. Disowned by her family, she goes to New York to fulfil her dream of becoming a singer on the Broadway scene. There starts the story of “The Hypnotic City”.

I must admit I remained torn throughout my reading, because of the “rags to riches” aspect—it was hard for me to decide if it was too cliché to my liking, or if it provided, on the contrary, a nice mise en abyme to Tom Casey’s shows: they’re described as “ridiculous and inane” by Jamie, stories where a working girl discovers she’s actually from a noble background and gets to embrace her legacy while also finding love… and this runs parallel to what happens to Philomena, except that she knows she’s of noble birth, but hides it, since people are always scared of her whenever she mentions coming from London. I tend to be on the fence regarding such plots, and there are quite a few clichés as well in this one: the letters that never arrive. Still, I couldn’t help but keep thinking that was totally on purpose, the author going all “sod it, I like those tropes, so I’m going to use them”, and not something done to fit a stereotype just because “some people love it”. I cannot fault that, and any reader who enjoys this kind of story is very likely to enjoy this one more than I did. (Which isn’t to say I didn’t—it’s just not my favourite kind of plot, if that makes sense.)

One really good thing here, regarding this “sterotypical plot”, is the feeling of unease permeating it. Perhaps because I already knew what Philomena had been through, perhaps because I expected “something” to happen at some point, but also because, under all the glitter and budding-singer-becomes-a-star glitz, I could sense that something was amiss. And I’d say the characters feel it too, especially Jamie, who may speak out of jealousy or contempt, yet nevertheless puts a finger on a few strange things in the process.

Another good thing is that the heroine is not a passive, helpless creature who lets events unfold around her; she tries to seize chances (going to auditions…) when she can, and she asserts her will (when a man boos her at her first show, she improvises and ends up impressing the audience). Phil knows what she wants, and is ready to fight for it, even though there are moments when she feels defeated. Yet this is also part of what “being a strong character” entails: it doesn’t mean being strong all the time, nor doing everything alone, it also means being able to acknowledge when you need help, and get it, and then win. Sort of.

The romance part was alright (I know, I know, I’m really a tough audience in terms of romance). Philomena’s love interest definitely had flaws, which made him human (and that’s good), but those flaws weren’t a deal breaker for me, unlike all these brooding-assholish “I’m so dangerous so don’t come near me characters”, and he was a decent person all around, who respected Phil’s personality.

The other guy was revolting, to say the least. I hated reading about him—and that is an extremely good thing, since eliciting feelings in a reader isn’t so easily done, at least not when I am concerned. When an author conveys how despicable a character is, in a manner that makes me feel like strangling said character with their own guts, well, that author has done something right.

I do believe the story could and should have been longer, though. As it is, a lot of screen time, so to speak, was devoted to the “rags to riches” part, and by contrast the resolution came too quickly. We barely get to see anything of Iris, Elliot and the others, when their role was important and would have deserved more, without necessarily detracting from Phil’s status as the main character. As it is, it seemed as if the main story was all told already, and that the mysterious/conspiracy part of the plot had to be dealt with because a resolution was expected, yet without being really convinced about it. Had this part been more developed, it’d have been a 4-stars for me.

Yzabel / August 8, 2016

Review: One Thousand Words for War

One Thousand Words for War by Hope Erica Schultz

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Imaginative and original, One Thousand Words for War explores in various fantastic settings the different types of conflict—from powerful internal and external conflicts with the potential to destroy the main character’s world to the peace that comes from accepting change. Whether it’s a transgendered girl standing up to bullies or a child soldier trying to save his fellows from war, this collection shows the powerful ways teens can overcome and embrace extraordinary circumstances.

Review:

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

2.5 to 3 stars. This was a nice and fast read. Unfortunately, like a lot of short stories collections, the downfall of this collection of short stories is that, like a lot of anthologies, it is neither exceptional nor really bad, which makes it a little unremarkable; on the good side, it also means it provides the reader with totally acceptable pieces—hence my rating. A bit annoying is also the fact that some of those works were too short and felt like introductions to other, longer tales begging to be told; in this, I do prefer standalones.

Apart from what I mentioned above, what confused me was the very wide definition given to “war”. Not merely “conflict”, “war”. It immediately evokes a specific kind of theme, which I agree can be slightly simplistic, in a way; nevertheless, when one does want to read about war in its “battles” or “military” meaning, some of the stories gathered here kind of miss the mark. Again, they’re not bad—just not really to the point, in a way? (I admit I did want, and expected, to read war stories more than anything else. When it was about a definite conflict, like the story with Cal/Callie standing up to the bullies, it worked too; other stories, like the one with the maze of mirrors, felt like it fell too far off.)

The focus is in general on children and teens. While this made some stories a little too simple to my liking, it also dealt with universal themes that do not grow old (no pun intended): having to leave childhood behind to become an adult, embracing responsibilities while also discovering who we truly are, children confronted to a world of war and having to survive… I quite appreciate such themes.

I realise this sounds more like critique than praise, but, once again, this anthology wasn’t bad—I guess I just have a harder time putting words on how exactly I still enjoyed it. Sometimes, some things just do not ask or need to be explained, I suppose?

Yzabel / July 22, 2016

Review: This Savage Song

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

Review:

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

Took me a while to get to this one, I don’t know why, so apologies to the publisher—I’ve had the ARC for a few months.

I guess it didn’t turn out like I thought, although I don’t know what I expected. Something more… intense? Savage, like the title? More action? Or maybe for the “failed assassination” part to happen sooner?

On the one hand, I really liked some of the concepts introduced here. First, the city divided between North and South, each side in the hands of “leaders” with their own ruthless ways—one a mobster-like crime lord who keeps the monsters in check by being a monster, too, and the other a benevolent military type who nevertheless has no qualms to associate with monsters as well. Second, the way those monsters are born: the shadowy Corsai from violence that doesn’t result in death, the Malchai from actual murder, and the Sunai for massacres, which contrasts in a terribly beautiful way with how they feed: born from the ugliest acts of violence, of dozens, hundreds, thousands of people killed in bombings and the likes, yet performing their killings through enchanting music. And let’s not forget the conundrum of the monster who wants to be human, who knows he cannot be, and who risks turning into an even worse monster if he denies his nature (not feeding basically means he’ll turn into a mass-murder predator, then will wake up having lost some bits of his hard-won personality… forever).

Also, no romance. Seriously. Not for one moment is it implied that Kate and August are meant to end up with each other in that way. As reluctant partners-in-crime? As friends at some point? Sure. But no twu wuv for these two, and that’s a breath of fresh air in a category (YA) where you know almost every main lead will meet one, potentially two (or more!) love interests.

Wonderful, wonderful ideas. The boy-monster who desperately wants to be human, even trying to believe in that dream when he gets to attend a school full of human beings, and the girl who’s ready to any length, including threatening her schoolmates and setting fire to a chapel at night, in order for her father to finally acknowledge her—meaning she needs to be as bad as him for that to happen, therefore turning into her own kind of monster.

And yet… Yet I couldn’t feel much of a pulse in the story. Maybe it went too slowly. Maybe it’s the kind of story where the characters need to be thrown in the action first, and then get to meet and to know each other, to discover their respective secrets and accept who they are (and who the other is). The Colton Academy part was perhaps too long, with August and Kate appearing like generic characters rather than real people (they remained a bit bland throughout the novel, in my opinion). And while I tend to like information about the world being given regularly, distilled between two events or two dialogues, instead of being chunked at the reader in huge blocks of info-dumping, in the end I still don’t know what that world is made of. Strangely enough, I may not have minded this if the story had been set in V-City only, with “The City” as a character itself; here, it was too much a “yet another USA turned dystopian for some unknown reason”.

Conclusion: loved the concepts, execution though was too weak compared to what could’ve been (and I know it definitely could’ve been, coming from this author!).

Yzabel / July 13, 2016

Review: The Casquette Girls

The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Seven girls tied by time.
Five powers that bind.
One curse to lock the horror away.
One attic to keep the monsters at bay.

After the storm of the century rips apart New Orleans, sixteen-year-old Adele Le Moyne wants nothing more than her now silent city to return to normal. But with home resembling a war zone, a parish-wide curfew, and mysterious new faces lurking in the abandoned French Quarter, normal needs a new definition.

As the city murder rate soars, Adele finds herself tangled in a web of magic that weaves back to her own ancestors. Caught in a hurricane of myths and monsters, who can she trust when everyone has a secret and keeping them can mean life or death? Unless . . . you’re immortal.

Review:

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

I’m not sure exactly how to rate this novel: I really liked the setting (New Orleans), but some of the characters’ features sometimes made me roll my eyes. To be fair, this may be in part due to my own jaded views on similar works: I’ve probably read one too many YA paranormal romance stories, so the usual love triangle and annoying guy attitudes has become old for me. I regret not liking this book more, at any rate.

The setting was definitely enchanting, in a sort of twisted way—twisted because this New Orleans is one slowly getting back on its feet after one of the most devastating hurricanes it’s ever seen (possibly Katrina, or at the least inspired by it). Infrastructures are in shambles, crime’s on the rise, there’s a curfew the police can barely enforce… And while I have no idea if this is an accurate depiction of a post-hurricane city, whether it would’ve been thus left to fend for itself by the government, I still liked that NOLA, for its blend of “post-ap” and people trying to go back to, and go on with, their lives there, keep smiling, keep the businesses running, and so on. Somehow, I could understand Adele’s desire to stay there, and not be shipped off to Paris or somewhere else, all the more since it’d mean being in a boarding school and not with her family. It was still magic.

I also liked the parts about Adeline: a bit awkward in the way it was introduced, maybe (a journal), but her journey, the people she met, the stifling stay in a ship for weeks, knowing a threat was lurking and nobody could just walk away to escape it, those were interesting.

On the downside, the novel relies on quite a few YA tropes that I couldn’t care less about—love triangles, good boy vs. bad boy love interest, female characters being talked about as if they weren’t there and generally being a bit… passive, Queen Bee and Mean Girls at school, and so on. Granted, Adele was not passive for the whole story so I won’t fault her too much for that, and the school part wasn’t the main part; it just felt like the “mandatory YA dynamics being inserted here”, when the actual plot itself could’ve done without that. Mysterious murders, predators waking up, Adeline’s story shedding light on what happened and hinting at what to be done: all those would’ve been fine, no need for a romance subplot (which didn’t have anything special going for it), that slowed down the pace to a crawl in places: I could do with the “slower” chapters used to describe the city and its atmosphere, I could do less with lulls caused by romantic scenes.

Some of the descriptions (told in 1st person) were a bit odd, too—on the purple prose side, and not very believable coming from a 16-year-old girl. I found this happened mostly in the beginning (darkness being described as “the obsidian”, or “espresso-coloured hair”?), and less afterwards. I’m not sure either about the French words and sentences used here and there; some were alright, others sounded grammatically weird. No idea if this is how people in New Orleans do speak, but as a native French reader, it’s strange.

Finally, I felt some subplots and threads were left somehow dangling. For instance, Adele’s mother was thrown in here a bit at random, too close to the end. And I would’ve liked to know a bit more about Cosette and the native girl; did they have offspring or not, and if not, was it to keep the number of characters down? Sometimes it seemed like things happened by coincidence, as plot devices, and not naturally enough to be really believable.

Conclusion: The main plot (monsters and witchcraft, with events originating in the past) was good, even though not the most original ever—it’s less about “being original” and more about “what you make of it” anyway. Yet I didn’t really care about the main characters, nor about the romance.

Enregistrer

Yzabel / July 7, 2016

Review: And I Darken

And I Darken by Kiersten White

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwyla likes it that way.

Ever since she and her brother were abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman sultan’s courts, Lada has known that ruthlessness is the key to survival. For the lineage that makes her and her brother special also makes them targets.

Lada hones her skills as a warrior as she nurtures plans to wreak revenge on the empire that holds her captive. Then she and Radu meet the sultan’s son, Mehmed, and everything changes. Now Mehmed unwittingly stands between Lada and Radu as they transform from siblings to rivals, and the ties of love and loyalty that bind them together are stretched to breaking point.

The first of an epic new trilogy starring the ultimate anti-princess who does not have a gentle heart. Lada knows how to wield a sword, and she’ll stop at nothing to keep herself and her brother alive.

Review:

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

That was an interesting “retelling”—or perhaps introduction to a retelling?—in that it follows Vlad Dracul, with a “what if he had been a girl?” approach. A princess, in a way, provided the daughter of a voivod without that much power can be considered privileged and powerful. Lada isn’t so much that as decided to make her own life, and prove to her father that she can do just as well as any boy. Perhaps even more. More ruthless, more brutal, more focused on honing her fighting skills. Everything that is unexpected from a woman in that place and time… unexpected, and not really welcomed either.

Wanting nothing more than to earn the love and esteem of her father, Lada is unearthed, along with her younger brother Radu, and sent as hostage to the sultan’s court. Not only does she have to live among the Ottomans she despises, she also has to come to terms with the fact her father basically sold his own children, leaving them at the mercy of his only goodwill: if he doesn’t behave, they are to be killed, plain and simple. What can—and should—a girl do in such circumstances? Thirteen, not fitting with the girls, not considered by the men around her, not even pretty (there are a few “beautiful ladies” in the sultan’s harem who use their looks as a way of gathering their own threads of power: after all, not all wars are fought on a physical battlefield).

This may not be much, but for once, it was good to find a story in which the heroine is presented as “ugly” and it’s all left at that, with only briefs mentions of her tangled hair and such, instead of droning on her eyes and curves and “ugly” features that are actually beautiful when you just pause to think about it. Too many books do that. Well, Lada doesn’t care. She’s not really described, anyway. And even though she’s just as lost as her brother, in a different way hidden behind her fierce attitude, even though she doesn’t know how to raise to her own power, she does come to realise that being a concubine is not how she wants to become powerful. She may have been too fierce at times; however, I didn’t mind that much.

I didn’t care much for Radu in the beginning, as he was quite a crybaby. However, growing up, he evolved into an interesting character when it came to his political shrewdness. While I admit I was a bit tired of his longing after the one person he could never have (because it didn’t seem it’d lead to much anyway), he did realise he also had means at his disposal that could make him useful, and help him find a place among the Ottomans. The reversal of roles between brother and sister, man and woman, “the physically weaker but scheming one” and “the fierce warrior who envisions different ways of doing what needs to be done”, caught in a love-hate relationship with no sibling exactly knowing until the very end who they’re going to choose… that was satisfying.

The romance was… okay-ish. I’m not a fan of love triangles, for starters, so meh. The bond between Lada and Mehmed seemed to be forged more out of friendship and trust than pure lust and swoony “I’ll love you forever” clichés; Lada knows from the beginning she doesn’t want to be part of a harem or even become a queen, as in such a context it would mean her only value is that of an object, like a treaty. However, it did fall into the usual trap of leading the characters to neglect their own goals at some point (staying for the guy, doing everything for the guy…), and this put a hamper on some of their skills: for instance, Radu’s developing ability to play the threads of courtly power gets obfuscated when he thinks and mopes so much about his love interest that he fails to realise who’s in the process of betraying him.

Sometimes I also found the story a bit too slow-paced. This may have been because of the romance and angsting, though: since I don’t care much for that, I naturally tend to find it a bit boring.

Conclusion: While it’s more a 3 to 3.5 stars for me, mostly owing to the love triangle, I still enjoyed the ending and where it seems to lead, and I wouldn’t mind reading the next volume—and see how this part of Lada’s life is going to play out.

Yzabel / June 15, 2016

Review: Riverkeep

Riverkeep by Martin Stewart

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

The Danék is a wild, treacherous river, and the Fobisher family has tended it for generations—clearing it of ice and weed, making sure boats can get through, and fishing corpses from its bleak depths. Wulliam’s father, the current Riverkeep, is proud of this work. Wull dreads it. And in one week, when he comes of age, he will have to take over.

Then the unthinkable happens. While recovering a drowned man, Wull’s father is pulled under—and when he emerges, he is no longer himself. A dark spirit possesses him, devouring him from the inside. In an instant, Wull is Riverkeep. And he must care for his father, too.

When he hears that a cure for his father lurks in the belly of a great sea-dwelling beast known as the mormorach, he embarks on an epic journey down the river that his family has so long protected—but never explored. Along the way, he faces death in any number of ways, meets people and creatures touched by magic and madness and alchemy, and finds courage he never knew he possessed.

Review:

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

A coming-of-age adventure in a world that is both threatening and full of wonders, following a boy who embarks on a journey to save his father: after Wulliam witnessed his dad being possessed by a river spirit, he decides to take his only parent to the sea, hunting down a legendary beast whose fluids are rumoured to have many healing properties. And even if it means abandoning his duties as the keeper of the river, Wull feels he doesn’t have a choice: either that, or let his father wither and die.

There were quite a few magical, poetic descriptions and moments in this book, and I never found it hard to picture the characters’ surroundings, or to imagine the mormorach, diving in the dark waters, preying on ships and crews bent on taking it down. Nor was it hard to imagine little Bonn, or Tillinghast’s strange body (bodies?).

However, I was a bit disappointed in the “adventure” itself, for it was rather sluggish in more than one place, and some events and character arcs felt put on a bus after a while. Most of the people Wulliam meets have their quirks and an aura of mystery: from the undertaker to Tillinghast the man who’s not alive, from Mix and her strange tattoos to Remedie cradling her strange baby, from the solitary scientist in the Deadmoor to the silent Mr Bent. The problem is that some of those people were given their own adventure… yet said adventures were never really concluded: only Wull and Tillinghast seem to have an ending of their own (as well as a few other characters, but let’s just say that their ending is a little more, uhm, permanent). As a result, it felt less like an open ending, and more like the author wanted to get to Wulliam’s ending mostly, with his quest being a little… on the side? I may be mistaken, but that’s how I keep on feeling about it now. I still don’t know why Mix doesn’t eat, or what happened to Remedie and Bonn.

Wulliam was also pretty annoying as a character. On the one hand, I could understand his desire to save his Pappa, along with his underlying somewhat selfish reasons (he wants to save him because he loves him, of course, but also because he doesn’t know how to be the Riverkeep in his stead, and wishes for his guidance some more); I could also understand how he’d come to be angry, considering everybody seemed to hitch a ride and not lift a finger to help. On the other hand, well… those characters helped in different ways (Till does pay for the trip, after all, and Mix does have a knack to gather resources unseen), and Wull after a while became more the annoying, tantrum-throwing type than the rightly-annoyed, unfairly-treated one.

Conclusion: ~ 2.5 stars out of 5. I liked the atmosphere, the depiction of the river and of the places travelled in this novel. Nevertheless, the pace was rather uneven, and unless it’s the first book in a series and we’re bound to learn more in a second one, not bringing closure to other characters’ stories made me feel unsatisfied.

Yzabel / May 23, 2016

Review: The Sign of One

The Sign Of One by Eugene Lambert

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

ONE FOR SORROW, TWO MEANS DEATH.

In the Barrenlands of Wrath, no one dies of old age. Kyle is used to its harsh laws, but the cold-blooded separation of identical twins and execution of the ‘evil twists’ at the Annual Peace Fair shocks him.

When Kyle himself is betrayed, he flees for his life with the reluctant help of Sky, a rebel pilot with a hidden agenda. As the hunt intensifies, Kyle soon realises that he is no ordinary runaway, although he has no idea why. Fighting to learn the hideous truth, their reluctant, conflicted partnership will either save them – or kill them.

Review:

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

2.5 stars. I’m not exactly sure how to rate this novel, because it was entertaining… but nothing I’ve never seen before. I guess I’ve just read too many “dystopian YA” novels to be easily awed?

Good things:
* There’s a romantice arc, but it’s far from being the main focus. The characters don’t act like dumbstruck hormone-governed bodies who’ll place a kiss above the fate of the world.

* The sci-fi background. It could’ve been more developed, sure; however, the “cuckoo” theory was interesting.

* For once the “pocket world” aspect is logical! It’s a dump colony, so it totally makes sense that settlements are gathered in a limited space, and not spread all over the planet. It’s not an entire world that had thousand of years to evolve, and would therefore make me wonder “well what the hell is the rest of this world doing, ignoring what’s happening here?”

* The pacing is fairly even, as in, with a good amount of action vs. quieter moments. Life starts normal, then something happens, then there’s a moment of quiet, then crap hits the fan again… I was never bored reading this story.

Things that didn’t thrill me:

* The world-building: good ideas at its basis, but not really developed later. Although the “normal twin / superhuman twin” idea was nice, I’d have liked to know more about how this all came to be, and how it came one twin developed differently (they’re identical twins, genetically-speaking, so what made the difference, or rather, how is this supposed to be explained?). Or the colonisationg itself: is it a bona fide (small) planet, and what happened to the previous civilisation(s), if any?

* The story is nothing original: tyrant oppressing the masses with the help of his “state police” (the Slayers), executions, a group of rebels fighting against the oppressor… There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary when it came to the Saviour’s government.

* Kyle has his whining moments, as well as his TSTL moments. I mean, come on. When you discover that you’re not supposed to be here, and that about everyone will betray you, it doesn’t take a genius to understand what you SHOULD NOT do. Running to do it is… head, meet desk.

* The aforementioned romance: why not… but also why. It feels like it’s mandatory these days. Here, the story could’ve gone its merry way juste as well without it.

Conclusion: Not a “bad” novel, and I honestly think that, a few years ago, I’d have rated it higher. It was mildly entertaining. It just wasn’t more than that for me.

Yzabel / April 26, 2016

Review: Illuminae

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman

My rating: [rating=5]

Blurb:

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

Review:

4.5 stars. I had to wait for 4 months to finally be able to borrow it from the library (10 people ahead of me, bah), and I admit I was worried about the whole epistolary/chats/format thing, because it’s too easy to just slap “witty” formatting on pages and call that a good book. Fortunately, the story and characters really hooked me–yes, even though the “chat-speak” on some pages would normally quickly have annoyed me in other circumstances.

There was romance, but not of the stupid kind that casts a shadow on the whole plot. While Ezra and Kady do think about each other, after their world was turned upside down and forced them to reconsider the importance of a breakup for what I shall call “puny teenager reasons”, they didn’t spend their time mooning, groping each other, and sending the rest of their crews to hell just because feeeeeeelings. Contrary to what happens too often in many YA novels (you know, “the world is ending but we’re still too busy pondering who we want to go out with”). It wasn’t the best romance ever, but at least it was far from being the worst I read.

The format: fun to read, although I tended to prefer some aspects over others (the “chatspeak” conversations, for instance, weren’t my favourites). I think this was because of the whole “report” side of it, which made for a strange dichotomy in the narrative: both very factual (“here are recordings from camera X”) and unreliable (how were those recordings recovered and put back together?).

The characters: so I’ll be honest, Ezra and Kady were “good” to read about but not really more. Ezra enlisted to help, not knowing much to what he was signing up for, yet aware someone should help, and gradually revealing a few things about his family that were hard to suspect at first. I didn’t care for Kady much at first, because of her sullen, do-not-want-to-do-that attitude; however, she redeemed herself later, and anyway was more of an action girl with a bit of romance on the side than the usual (and annoying) lovestruck heroine who lets The Boy do all the work.

Yet as far as I’m concerned, the one character I really, really loved reading about was AIDAN. It’s crazy and damaged and desperately trying to latch upon what’s left of its programming, pushing its core directives in directions that may or may not be completely at odds with what the crews of the three spaceships would like (or need). And in doing so, in being so, it was all so human, spiralling towards both destruction and a new awareness.

And, frankly, I just loved that AI. It added at least a full star to my rating. No kidding. And just for AIDAN, I’d read it again. (Also for the unreliable parts I mentioned above, and the way they tie together, and you’d better pay attention to a few tiny details here and there.)

Yzabel / April 13, 2016

Review: The Star-Touched Queen

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

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

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

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

Review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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