I only ever made it 43 pages into this book before I decided it just wasn't for me. I only ever made it 43 pages into this book before I decided it just wasn't for me. ...more
read Black Ice with a lot of hopes. Hopes that Fitzpatrick was writing something brave and different, a departure from Hush, Hush which was a total a read Black Ice with a lot of hopes. Hopes that Fitzpatrick was writing something brave and different, a departure from Hush, Hush which was a total abomination for me. Still, I was willing to give it a fair shot. Unfortunately, it seems Fitzpatrick has a formula that she refuses to veer from and that made this book every bit as painful as Hush, Hush was. And all the temptation that maybe Fitzpatrick was doing something brave and hard was washed away with every page I turned.
Black Ice is the story about a girl who goes camping and gets kidnapped by criminals who force her to navigating the freezing terrain in order to help them escape. Things become complicated when she starts to develop feelings for one of her captors.
Fitzpatrick set this up as a Stockholm Syndrome tale and had everything at her disposal to make it great. It to make it brave and edgy and real. Instead she bowed to whimsical fantasy and romantic notions in order to twist it into something it should never have been. A love story.
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So let’s start with the formula that Fitzpatrick can’t seem to let go of.
1 Very Bad Boy + 1 Annoying Heroine + 1 Best friend who can die in a fire = Kat is going to kill something.
Mason kidnaps her, drags her through frozen tundra, lets his friend hold a gun to her and keeps up this charade as a villain all through the novel. But because he is occasionally kind to her and hot, Britt, our leading lady, falls for him.
Britt, is not quite as annoying as the heroine in Hush, Hush. She does some clever and brave things. This almost saves it for me. Almost. But her obsession over Calvin drove me mad. The story kept dropping history between her and Calvin which was quite boring and ultimately needless. She was a flawed heroine and that’s okay. She was probably the best thing about this novel, even if that’s not saying much.
Korbie. Korbie, rather like Vee was the most annoying character in this book and the very fact that she wasn’t in it much was her only saving grace. One more page of her and I might have bashed this book against my head several times just to numb the pain.
The ending. Let’s talk about the ending here because I know most of you aren’t planning on reading this shit, so being coy about it.
Spoilers Ahead
Mason’s not really the bad guy, see? He’s just pretending to be a hardened criminal so that he can find his sister’s killer. Who just happens to be Calvin, Britt’s ex boyfriend and Korbie’s brother. See? Britt really fell for a hero, not the bad guy. He was only pretending to kidnap her. So this makes everything about 100 times shittier. Instead of doing the brave thing and having Britt tragically need to hand in the man who kidnapped her and endangered her life, she turns summersaults to turn him into a hero. So that they can be together.
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This refusal to commit to reality made the novel so much weaker and less tense. It lacked the emotional impact because it veered so far into fantasyland that I was almost ready to believe that Britt was hallucinating the end of this novel as she lay in a snowdrift dying.
If you want a book that is unapologetic in its handling of Stockholm Syndrome then I honestly suggest you skip this one and try Stolen: A Letter to My Captor by Lucy Christopher. Hauntingly beautiful and emotionally charged, it will fill the hole that Black Ice leaves behind....more
Scorched, the convoluted story about a girl who could start an apocalypse just by hatching a dragon. It’s a dragon apocalypse!
You know, I honestly donScorched, the convoluted story about a girl who could start an apocalypse just by hatching a dragon. It’s a dragon apocalypse!
You know, I honestly don’t know why I picked up this book from my ARC stacks. I just felt like dragons. But I probably should have guessed, based on the dragon coping a feel of the the girl on the cover there, that this book wouldn’t be for me. I stuck with it, though, and gave it a fair shot. All the way to page 136 when I had to stop for my sanity’s sake.
So the writing itself wasn’t the worst. I had no real problem with its descriptors or anything but the three main characters drove me completely up the wall.
The plot tried to pull this WHAT A TWIST style story structure. Trying to keep you guessing on who Trinity should trust. The clear answer being your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman and nobody else. Spiderman would have known what to do.
The most aggravating thing about this novel is that a few pages can’t go buy without Connor mooning over Trinity. Or Trinity mooning over Connor. Or Caleb mooning over Trinity. I didn’t get up to the part where Trinity moons over Caleb, but I’m pretty sure it would happen eventually. And when people were kissing only a few hours after meeting, I wanted to throw the book at the wall and sing I Feel Pretty to myself until the pain went away.
“She was beautiful, he thought. The history texts did not do her justice. Sure, she had the same tangles of black curls falling down her back in waves, the same delicate features. But no photo could capture her long lashes, sweeping across freckled cheeks, or the way her lower lip plumped as she frowned in her sleep. And they certainly couldn’t capture the fiery passion in her black eyes, illuminating the spark that was so strong within her.” And no photo could capture my pain at having to read this shite every time Connor or Caleb decided to go all star-eyed over the most specialist special girl who ever specialed. Because Trinity is the uberspecial. She kicks off the apocalypse, she has super powers, she’s bonding with a queen dragon, she’s gorgeous, she’s going to be world famous/infamous. Two uber hawties travelled back in time ala Terminator to save her.
Kill. Me. Now.
And can we talk about the use of the word Fleck? Instead of swearing in the book, Connor and Caleb use the word Fleck.
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Look, first of all, you’re a Young Adult novel. It’s okay to swear. Really. I give you permission to use the word fuck. And don’t try to tell me that it’s possible that 200 years in the future, people will have replaced fuck with fleck. It’s never going to happen. Fuck is a perfectly serviceable, good word that isn’t suddenly going to be replaced by some random reiteration of it within a few generations. It’s just… Stop it, okay? Just bloody swear because you’ve made me do enough of it already.
Basically, this book is a hot mess and I demand reimbursement for the pain it’s put me through. That or, I dunno, a puppy....more
Otherwise known as Tumble & BORE (sorry, I hadn’t seen anyone use that pun yet). Tumble & Fail: the most boring apocalyptic book ever. A Tumble & Fall
Otherwise known as Tumble & BORE (sorry, I hadn’t seen anyone use that pun yet). Tumble & Fail: the most boring apocalyptic book ever. A gentler, kinder soul might say that it’s a character-driven novel exploring the way three teens face the oncoming apocalypse. That gentler and kinder soul would be wrong. The apocalypse is treated like background radiation. It keeps getting mentioned, but it’s hard to see what the hell it’s got to do with the book. Honestly, you could remove it and most of the book would scarcely be affected which is problematic considering how much the book rides on that concept.
This book is made even more boring since, for a bunch of people about to possibly die, and have everyone they love die, these are the most disaffected people ever. No joke, the first hundred pages or so of this novel is people standing around going:
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“Hey, heard about that apocalypse thing?”
“Yeah, sucks. Wanna make out?”
“Sure.”
There you go. If you were interested in Tumble & Fall, you now have a basic grasp of the plot – times three! This is possibly the most disconnected and emotionless novel I have ever read. Even Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality was more interesting because at least it was funny! Zan gets the closest to some kind of emotional impact, but it’s over a boy who died 10 months ago. Where’s the examining of one’s life, the search for the meaning of it all, the desperate despair at an uncontrollable fate? If you’re writing a story about the oncoming apocalypse, here’s a tip, why don’t some of the characters spend some time actually agonizing over it. This novel spends so much time trying to be cool, yet fails to be anything other than frustrating.
The writing is abysmal, especially when it’s trying to be clever.
“Two things people make time for at the end of the world: Free food and a party.”
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The two things everyone cares about is sex and doing all the illegal shit they couldn’t otherwise do unless the world was coming to an end. End times babies and our inherent affinity to breaking shit is proof of that.
Free food and a party? Don’t get me wrong, I will eat ALL the things if I know the end of the world is over. I’ll probably have cans of whipped cream on tap just so I can constantly be injecting it into my mouth. But a lame community center party with cocktail wienies? WHO DOES THIS?! You have a week to live people! It’s like you don’t even know how!
Here’s a tip:
-420 Party
-Booze
-Big ass speakers and a base.
-A packet of condoms (safe sex, kids! Even at the end of the world!)
-lube
-honey
-pine cones
-an enraged badger
-a bag full of feathers
-enough PVC glue to fill a vat
-a pool filled with corn flour slime
-inflatable pool filled with jello
-glow sticks
-whistles
-sparklers
-clothing optional policy
I don’t know about you, but that party sounds like it’d be totally illegal in at least 49 states but totally awesome in every single one of them! Boom. I should have written this novel.
Most of the time, unless I paid attention to the chapter header, it took me awhile to figure out who was who. I only figured out the difference between Zan and Sierra because one of them was constantly moaning about a dead boyfriend that I honestly couldn’t have cared less about. And the only thing that marks Caden’s chapters differently is that he’s checking out girls instead of boys and being even more disaffected than the other two characters. Which frankly seems like he bends the rules of the time space continuum to achieve.
What I want to know is, end of the world, why did Coutts pick the three most boring teenagers ever, living at the most boring place ever, to write about?
I stretched my brain to think about three characters I’d be even less enthused to read about and this was all I could come up with:
1. Someone whose goal is to document the full life cycle of the Boletellus obscurecoccineus fungus family before the end of the world. 2. A man desperately trying to convince family and friends to legitimately convert to Jedi-ism before the end of the world to save their mitochondrial souls (because he doesn’t really understand the force). 3. A mime trying to send a message of peace to the entire world through silent body motions – only to realize, sadly, that nobody cares. Because everyone hates mimes. Everyone.
Actually, I take that back. Those three people could actually manage to be more interesting.
Fail.
This book was given to me by the publishers for the purpose of an honest review. As you can see, there's no reason they would give me money, gifts or favors for this kind of stuff.
If it were a city it would be Failinburg. If it were a WWII battle, it would be Failingrad. If this book were a movie, it would be MThis book is fail.
If it were a city it would be Failinburg. If it were a WWII battle, it would be Failingrad. If this book were a movie, it would be Million Dollar Failby. How much did this book fail thee? Let me count the ways. Oh no wait, I couldn't be bothered. I ain't bovvered. If this book were my Polish grandfather, its name would be Failinski. Yes, I have a Polish grandfather. He doesn't Failinski. He's awesome. Unlike this book, which sucks.
Which reminds me, If this book were royalty it would live in Suckingham Palace. You know what awards this book won other than NONE? The Man Sucker International Book Prize.
If you read this book for shits and giggles, you'd still be disappointed.
Okay, at page 156 this crossed over from boring to painful to read.
And it's not that I don't understand what the author is trying to do here. Low selOkay, at page 156 this crossed over from boring to painful to read.
And it's not that I don't understand what the author is trying to do here. Low self-esteem country girl, bully misogynistic husband, starting a new life and all that. It's probably mostly realistic. I've met enough couples like this - particularly country lads who couldn't wipe their asses without a woman around to help them with it. It's just that nothing happens. It's such a long, drawn out boring tale of lunch meeting after lunch meeting after coffee meet up and then a dinner meeting thrown in to round it off.
And whilst I understood why the main character was so painfully, ridiculously, annoyingly dumb, and even felt that her actions were in line with the character - this simply made that novel horrible to read.
But I'm nothing, if not, all about the edumacation, folks. So I'm going to provide a list of things to do, that this character definitely should have done, in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation.
Things you should do if you're leaving your partner:
1. Make copies of all financial papers. Bank statements, recent sales, deeds, debts, assets, superannuation details, payslips etc. (If you quit work to stay at home for your partner/family - remember to consider the superannuation that you've lost out on when calculating your financial worth.)
2. Seek legal advice. Make sure this lawyer or firm is not representing your partner. If you can't afford a lawyer and don't qualify for legal aid, investigate a mediator.
3. Make note of the date of separation.
4. Close any joint accounts.
5. Get your name off utilities as soon as you leave.
6. Don't sign anything without having it viewed by your lawyer.
7. Fuck everyone else. Seriously, just fuck them. Do what you need to do for yourself....more
It’s been so long since I actively disliked a book that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. The more I tried to separate my dislike for the chIt’s been so long since I actively disliked a book that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. The more I tried to separate my dislike for the characters and storytelling and try to analyze it impartially, the more I found myself saying, “Bugger this! Drink anyone?” to the empty air around me.
Crewel is a post-apocalyptic dystopian world in which women are oppressed and tightly controlled. It is a world where matter and people can be weaved and stitched through special looms that Spinsters use. This should have been right up my alley. It was definitely right up something, but it wasn’t my alley.
Unfortunately, Crewel is a heavily character-based novel. I say unfortunately because there isn’t a single character with more complexity or depth than a kiddie pool and certainly none of them are even a fraction of the fun. Even the main character, whose head we live in, is so vague and two dimensional that any actions and emotions she displays felt disconnected from the reality of the novel. This story, even in its most intense moments, was emotionless and the opposite of affecting. It was like watching a play only the stage is at the bottom of the cliff and you’re at the top. So far removed that you can see what the actors are doing but engaging in them or the story is impossible.
There are a number of characters the narrator expects us to care about: Elanor, Valery, Amie, Jost, Erik, Pryana. However, most of these characters barely even have a role. Most of Valery’s speaking lines come after the Great Tragedy that befalls her – and they’re still only a few lines. Elanor as well, while having a slightly bigger role, is little more than a convenient plot device and represents one of the only semi-positively written female characters. Her role is so tightly packed into being a convenient tell-machine for the narrator to pass information, and to resolve a later plot point that there is nothing else to her.
The plot itself is a hot mess with no direction or focus. It flits around distractedly, trying to accomplish everything and achieving nothing. Don’t even get me started on the ending! The main selling point of this novel is the weaving – which Adelice does almost none of since she spends more time making goo goo eyes are boys than she ever does interacting with women or doing the damn thing this book was named after.
This is made even worse when you consider the face that the romance in this book is justifiably scoff-worthy. There isn’t even enough material between them for one convincing romance. Since Adelice is about as interesting as wet cardboard, it’s hard to imagine anyone falling for her. Each boy barely fares better. Their personalities combined still wouldn’t save them from being inhumanely dull. They are just two more wooden puppets in a whole cast of wooden puppets.
For a novel that is supposed to be about the struggles of women in a highly patriarchal world, this novel was dreadfully sexist. When I spoke to a friend about this issue, they said, “I tend to disagree with a lot of the criticism re: the book being sexist, but think you could probably make a more compelling case.”
Well, buckle up your seatbelt, sunshine*! Here’s my case!
*Seatbelt not actually required.
Readers can and should make a deal about the slut-shaming and complete lack of positive female characters. That’s an issue all in itself. But then, I guess, one could also sweep that aside with justifications. Because there are unpleasant and horrible women out there – because women are people, and people come in a mixed bag. And a society so entirely preoccupied with purity would result in citizens slut-shaming girls for acting outside of those bounds. So there’s obviously an important discussion to be had on those topics, even though they are not definitely sexist on their own, only kind of sexist.
For me, the true test came when I considered what my Southern and Imaginary mother always told me and that is, “Honey cupcake, y’all should know that actions speak louder than words.” So true, Southern and Imaginary mother. So true. So whilst this book may have given lipservice to how unfair life was for women and how that TOTALLY wasn’t right or good, what service did the narration and plot actually have to say about women? Put it this way: When comparing the relevance and representation given to male and female characters in relation to their contribution to the novel, what does it say about women?
Almost every single male character we meet is important. Cormac, Jost, Erik are the three big ones. There are only a handful of other males with speaking roles in this book and they’re fairly neutral in their representation. People just doing their job. Only one male with a speaking role is depicted badly, which is a drunk, handsy official at a party – and he is still not portrayed worse than the woman trying to vie for his attention. At least, the characters narrating the situation focus on how disgusting she is, while he only gets a passing mention. I think there may be a waiter who has a speaking role for the purpose of showing how segregated and unfair they world is, but that’s it.
Compare that to the novel’s complete and utter lack of focus on women – which is pretty disgraceful for a novel that’s supposed to be about women’s struggles in a patriarchal society. The only important women in this book are Adelice and the women who torment her. We are introduced to whole batches of women, who are immediately dismissed by the character and text as meaningless and valueless. The girls from Adelice’s hometown? Just simpering morons waiting to get mated. Even her own younger sister cares for little else. It seems no one is as deep and thoughtful as Adelice. Then when she enters Coventry with a large group of her peers, they are immediately shown to be jealous and power-hungry, but ultimately completely inconsequential. We don’t meet any of them ever again whilst Jost, Erik and Cormac receive the large bulk of Adelice’s, and the narrative’s attention. Because they’re what really matters, ya know? What the menfolk are doing. The only exception to this rule, because it is a pattern repeated yet again when Adelice joins the Spinsters who are also cliquey and immediately dismissed from the narrative as pointless and worthless like the literally dozens of other women we meet, is Maela and Pryana. Maela is a power-hungry psychopath and Pryana is a power-hungry, vicious, idiot. Both are stupid and extremely ineffective at what they do. Female solidarity doesn’t exist in this novel. Unless you’re referring to the convenient plot-device that is Elanor. She is the sole exception.
Add to this the fact that the women in this novel all act inexplicably irrational. There is evil Cormac, and evil Maela and evil Pryana. Only one of them acts intelligently and with rationale – I’ll let you pick which one. You can depend on the evil women to be emotional, lashing out and sometimes hysterical. Behaviour that is never depicted in the men. For example, Maela asks Adelice to remove a strand from the weave. The strand is a person who doesn’t need to be removed and doing so could harm the weave, so she refuses. Maele takes her scalpel and tears into the weave out of anger. It turns out this was a school where Pryana’s sister lived. So Pryana… blames Adelice?! Because that totally makes sense. And she spends the rest of the novel irrationally tormenting Adelice. Valery, similarly blames Adelice for things that are entirely out of her control. It is so manufactured and senseless that it made the novel ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the fact that Adelice spent the novel entirely focused on boys. The plot went something like this:
Adelice’s family dies
Cormac
meets horrible girls
boy
boy
Cormac
stuff about weaving
boy
boy
boy
boy
Cormac
More horrible girls
boy
boy
boy
Cormac
Cormac
Even Loricel, supposedly the one, decent woman in power in this book is little more than a caricature. You can’t claim a feminist text when the narration itself, despite constantly being surrounded by women, decides that all the male characters are so much more interesting and worth focusing on. When the few male characters are afforded exponentially more important roles than any of the many, many female characters – many of whom don’t even get the honour of a name or mention outside of just Horrible Female #35 who says horrible thing to Adelice. When the rate of decent male character so far outstrips the demonstration of decent female characters that there isn’t even room for comparison, you have a problem. You have a book that wants to say something about women, but ignores them in favor of focusing on men.
That is really fucking sexist. So… Bugger this! Drink, anyone?...more
Whether or not you enjoy this book depends on what you were expecting to begin with. No Really. Look at that cover, reread the synopsis and decide Whether or not you enjoy this book depends on what you were expecting to begin with. No Really. Look at that cover, reread the synopsis and decide right now what you’re hoping from this book. Is it:
a) A dark, twisted retelling of Alice in Wonderland with zombie creatures?
b) A high school melodrama about ghost/zombies with no real Alice in Wonderland connection.
If you thought B then good for you. Read this book. If you thought A then back the hell off now. This is not the book for you and you will likely be disappointed.
I thought A. From the title and the vague synopsis I believed that this would be an Alice going into zombieland and dealing with a dark, unsettling, gory version of Wonderland with many of the themes and symbolism from the original story modernized and reimagined in this book. I thought this was going to be a book version of American McGee’s Alice.
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Now, just to make it clear. It’s not a book or author’s fault if that book was not what the reader imagined. But I do think the title and synopsis is misleading considering a number of people, myself included are probably a little confused about what this actually is. The synopsis is vague, mentioning only revenge and monsters and a bad boy.
So let’s clear this up. This is what Alice in Zombieland is:
Alice’s entire family die in a car crash. Her father, who always believed in zombies (they aren’t physical zombies. They’re incorporeal, evil spirits that attack and eat your soul) is eaten. Alice, orphaned, goes to a new school where students act strangely. In particular, a student name Cole who is all badass and secretive. Instalove, love triangles, special girl with special powers later, blah blah blah THAT is the story.
In fact it felt, while reading, that the Alice in Wonderland elements were shooed in at the last minute and didn’t feel as though they were native or even relevant to the story. Certainly, whilst the author links to a couple of small, inconsequential details like the white rabbit and the Cheshire cat, none of the themes of Alice seemed touched upon or incorporated into the story as a whole. Which is a shame because the coming of age in a strange and crazy world that everyone thinks is normal theme would have worked so extremely well IN A YOUNG ADULT NOVEL ABOUT ZOMBIES!
But instead of talking about what I wanted the book to be – what is the actual book like? Well, just not for me. Showalter is transitioning from adult paranormal romance to YA and I don’t think it was successful. She built Cole off the foundation of a romanticized Alpha male – if that’s your thing fine, but I think the effect is lost when the audience is reminded that this is a sixteen year old boy. Like when they’re at the club and intimidating grown men away from the girls by growling. Yeah…
Alice is a reasonable character, though not one I had a great deal of interest in. She simply capitulated too much to Cole’s cavemanish tendencies to keep my interest. The general cast is alright but it is quite sizable and burdens the plot with a great deal of what felt like unnecessary posturing and conversing over things the audience already knows.
I somewhat expected better from the writing considering this is far from Showalter’s debut novel. The action scenes did not feel well realized and the final battle was amazingly short and anticlimatic. There was a focus on the romance. To be fair, it’s by no means a single-minded focus, simply too much for me considering I had no investment in their relationship to begin with. Instalove is not a plot device that I like. I never felt that I championed the relationship between these two characters because it never seemed to me that they had any chemistry to begin with or even liked each other – at all.
My basic advice before buying this book would be to read as many reviews of it as you can by people whose opinion you trust, decide if it is something that’s going to appeal to you and read the sample online before you purchase.
Basically, would it have been too hard to have a story where Alice and the Mad Hatter throw down in a knife fight? Really, guys? REALLY?!...more
I don’t read many books that I would rate 1 star these days. I seem to have mastered my preferences and hit a stride of excellent books – or at leI don’t read many books that I would rate 1 star these days. I seem to have mastered my preferences and hit a stride of excellent books – or at least mostly readable books.
Admittedly I only made it fifty-six pages into this book before I threw my hands up in disgust and tossed a pillow at the wall – so I suggest you take that into account when deciding whether to buy this book.
Why did I stop reading? First reason:
The death of a token character
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We didn’t know her long enough, but I’m pretty sure she could play base.
Right off a POC character is killed and whilst that would be annoying in its own right, since killing off POC characters is a frustrating cliche in books, TV shows and films, this was even more annoying. Firstly because her description was extremely stereotypical – to the point that she was less of a character and more of a caricature. Perhaps even worse and more degrading is that there was no real lament to her death. It was used as a story progression so that the male protagonist could wax lyrical about how beautiful and brave the female protagonist for trying to save the dying POC character. I kid you not. A girl is dying in a terrifying, violent, horrifying way and this is what he’s thinking:
“It’s just that… she doesn’t look as though she needs help. Her pale face is contorted with anger. Not fear. Not distress. Just fury. Her white hair floats like an aura, jerking in delayed reaction with each of her capable movements.”
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Like I said – a girl just died and he’s having a hard on for Emma. And even worse, we’re supposed to be having a hard on for how awesome Emma is. The text is all about Emma.
In fact, Chloe’s death seems to be nothing but an agent for making us sympathetic for Emma. It felt cheap and dirty. Sure, taking on a bullshark is a seriously awesome thing to do. Almost as awesome as that time I wrestled a crocodile. But let’s not get off track here. When sitting down and planning how to make a main character rock super hard, I could think of a hundred ways that didn’t involve creating a token character, immediately killing her off and then using that death to wank about how awesome the protagonist is.
I mean, first of all… gross from an imagery point of view. Second of all, holy flipping duck twat, Batman, way to be offensive!
Second reason:
The sexism.
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There’s nothing wrong with creating a sexist society. However, there is some responsibility when doing so. That the writing doesn’t actually support or romanticize or give tacit approval for the sexism is a good start. Of Poseidon features a heavily misogynistic mermaid society. And as such, the male characters act like a bunch of misogynistic dicks. Once again, completely understandable. But then it’s when everyone else just kind of goes along with that and doesn’t see a problem that my eye started to twitch. And then when some pretty outright paternalistic bullcrap takes place, I started seeing red. Like when a stalker mermaid arrives for a female character, Rayna. They are mated against her will and her refusal and hatred of him is treated as a comical device in the story – just her being a fickle and childish girl – not actually a woman rebelling against a system that doesn’t allow her to choose her mate or even requires her to be present for the ceremony. She’s angry at him because they were childhood friends and he’s always known that she never wanted to mate. He went behind her back, asked her Dad and organized for them to be mated. She’s pissed at him. Naturally. Personally, I would have seduced him out onto an isolated locale and impaled him on a rock. Rayna’s anger and hatred toward him is just laughed off by everyone. Including her brother.
Excuse me? EXCUSE ME!? What the ever loving fuck?! Oh, I see. Women in this world don’t know what they want until the smarter, better men come along and show them. Right. RIGHT.
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Then there’s Gallen who is just sexist plain and simple. He dismisses his sister, does not discuss the information he’s working on with her – but will with her mate – another man. I am told that he takes over Emma’s life and treats her much like a bit of baggage in the name of taking care of her. I didn’t see any progression toward a less sexist Galen having any kind of revelation that women weren’t all a bunch of objects to be ordered around like sheep.
You expect women to be unreasonable barnyard animals too busy masticating and going into heat to do any reasonable and logical thought, fine. But think like that and try to be a romantic interest in a YA novel I’m reading? No way. Sorry, Galen. You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
Third reason:
The writing.
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I truly disliked the writing. Not only was it incredibly telling and flat but the story also jumped awkwardly between the first person narrative for Emma and the third person narrative for Gallen. It did not feel polished or finished at all.
“Stop!” she yells.
Galen stops. But Emma’s not talking to him. She’s talking to the shark.
And the shark stops.
Emma wraps both arms around Chloe and hugs her to her chest, leaning her friend away from the attack. “You can’t have her! Leave her alone! Leave us both alone!”
The shark turns, saunters away as if sulking.
SHARKS CAN SAUNTER?! AND SULK!?
I know what she’s doing here and that’s being abrupt and edgy with a tense moment. But I just trip over those sentences every time I read them. And a lot of this book is like this. Part of me wants to take a red pen to it and just clean it up a bit. It’s not like Banks is necessarily a bad writer – but that her writing isn’t smooth. There’s no poetry or rhythm to it. Just these jarring, awkward sentences that hurt my brain.
Fourth reason:
The characterization
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“Hi! My name is River Swan Desmonda Sparkle-Eyes!”
Emma was, in my opinion, a Mary Sue – and that is a term I don’t use often. Basically, I felt she was an author insert. Rare compelling eyes, one of a kind in her species, ultra special, father AND friend died to create sympathy. Even Gallen, when not with Emma, only thinks about Emma. He can sense her on land when that’s supposed to be impossible. It’s always the same with Mary Sues. Impossibility surrounds them and they’re just so fucking SPESHAL while being the most boring, repetitive, inoffensive turds around. The problem with Mary Sues is that, if you’ve read one you’ve read them all and the only thing that separates them is the degree to exactly HOW speshul and ewnique they are. And the more Mary Suish they are, the more the other characters spend every fucking moment talking and thinking about Mary Sue – which as far as I could see, was exactly what happened in this book. The only character flaw the author has given her is that she’s clumsy. Clumsy is not a character flaw. I’m sorry, but it’s not. It’s a lazy way of trying to make a young, beautiful female character immediately adorable and relatable to an audience and writers do it all the time. Stop. Just stop it, okay?
Even if the story telling explains the clumsiness (she’s not meant to be on land – she’s meant to be in the water) it still makes for a weaker character. Because if you can’t bare to give your MC a more intense flaw than ‘clumsy’ then that becomes ALL you can say about her. “What’s Emma like?” “Oh, she’s just this really clumsy, insecure teenage girl.” Clumsy and insecure? No! Never. That only marginally ties her to like 95% of the YA MC population!
Basically, I can deal with bad writing – to a degree. And bad characterization – to a degree. And sexism – to a degree. But throw them all in with the death of a token character and smoosh it into a terrible mess? Then I can’t deal. Then I throw my hands up in disgust, delete the book off my ereader and try to scrub my bloody brain free....more
Requiem. When all good things must come to an end. A horrible, horrible end that didn’t do any justice to the series. But an end nonetheless. Requiem Requiem. When all good things must come to an end. A horrible, horrible end that didn’t do any justice to the series. But an end nonetheless. Requiem is like sitting down to a well-deserved, hot pie and relishing every bite until you get to the last one and die of poisoning without ever knowing why or how. There was literally a moment when I got to the last few pages, realized there wasn’t any more and freaked out. From enjoyment for insurmountable anger.
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I am a solid believer that Lauren Oliver is a capable, talented author. I also think she’s brave. Not all authors risk venturing into unfamiliar territory. Think how common it is for an author to be writing their fourth or fifth book in a series and starting spinoffs in the same world when even that gets old. It’s clear from Delirium that Oliver was trying on something new. Uncomfortable at first, but I’d felt that in Pandemonium, she had hit her stride. Requiem, the last part of Lena’s journey, seems to have been a new challenge all in its own. One that I didn’t feel Oliver managed to surmount.
The novel is divvied up into Lena’s POV and Hannah’s POV – sometimes done with more success than other times. Overall, it wasn’t a bad series and Requiem wasn’t necessarily a bad book. It simply could never escape from the premise holding so much more promise than the story could deliver. Compared to other series in this genre, it struggled to hold its own candle. I feel bereft and let down after the promise and goodness that was Pandemonium.
There are concepts and ideas there. A tale Oliver wants to tell about love – its strengths and pitfalls. The good and the bad. You can see the reaching for it in Requiem. Then a point comes when it seems the tale is abandoned in favour of wrapping it up as soon as possible. Some might call it an open ending. To me an open ending leaves you with thoughtful questions, not a whole lot of blank spaces. To me, Requiem doesn’t have an open ending. It just stops, with little rhyme or reason.
I’m not even going to talk about anything else that happens or the characters or themes or writing or anything. I refuse. Debate or not, an ending is an ending is an ending. Just because something ended doesn’t mean you gave it an actual ending. Need further proof? Allow me to illuminate on th-
I jumped at the thought of this ARC. A girl time traveling back to seduce Shakespeare? That’s awesome! Shakespeare! *Swoon*
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I had full on JI jumped at the thought of this ARC. A girl time traveling back to seduce Shakespeare? That’s awesome! Shakespeare! *Swoon*
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I had full on Joseph Fiennes from Shakespeare in Love flashbacks because, of course, I was 12 when the movie came out. Of course, as an adult I know a lot more about who Shakespeare seemed to be like from what documents we have.
But still, I thought, how fascinating? How is this going to go down? But this emphasis on Stephen Langford in the synopsis? After all, the book is called Kissing Shakespeare. So… she’ll just be kissing Shakespeare, right?!
There will be people who will enjoy this book, undoubtedly. But before you buy this book, allow me to give you this spoiler in case it’s important. Shakespeare is nothing more than a shadow of a character in this book.
Miranda, teenage actress from Massachusetts, gets physically abducted by Stephen and dragged back to Elizabethan England for the express purpose of having to seduce Shakespeare so that he doesn’t turn to the Priesthood. So the romance, up until I read, seemed to be between Stephen and Miranda… the man who forcibly abducted a terrified girl, took her to a place where she’d be friendless and alone, and threatened her unless she seduces his friend.
Please allow me a moment to react.
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No! NOOOOO! NOOOOOO! Why?! WHY!? Why does our male protagonist have to be someone who abducted her and is literally forcing her into a form of prostitution because he thinks it doesn’t matter since women in the future are all sluts anyway. WHY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
If that were the only problem with the novel, I MAY have been able to shudder and at least finished the novel. Maybe.
Unfortunately, his other reasons for abducting this one particular girl are that she is: a) an actress, b) very familiar with Shakespeare’s works and world and c) supposed to be able to pull this stupid, stupid, ridiculously dumb scheme off.
The first problem is that if she is an actress then I am Imelda Marcos – and since I can’t seem to find my impressive collection of designer shoes (I looked) then this first part is rubbish. All three of these foundations have a basis in her supposed intellect which was unfortunately out for dinner throughout any of the book I read. For someone whose main asset was being steeped in Shakespearean plays and culture – she just plain SUCKED. She was mindless. She couldn’t even CURTSY! I know she was supposed to be an audience surrogate, but there’s a balance that needs to be maintained. That balance repeatedly had its feelings hurt and it eventually left to find someone who would treat it properly.
Then we get to the writing which was just juvenile, which matched the plot and the characters so at least I can’t say it was inconsistent.
One of the worst things about reviewing a book is to be careful not to mix up what you wanted and expected with the actual story. Sometimes that’s just impossible to do. But I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect a book titled Kissing Shakespeare about a girl supposed to be seducing Shakespeare would actually… be about Shakespeare.
And I guess it’s not unfair to expect that one of the most brilliant playwrights of all time would be a little more complex and interesting. Look, I know he wrote to make money and he wrote populist material for the time but his beautiful, beautiful prose! His sonnets! It is technically possible that he could have just been a dumb, shallow useless seventeen year old. But c’mon!
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It is also entirely possible that he was a complicated, thoughtful and insightful human being.
And if we take a quick poll of people to ask about which Shakespeare they’d rather read about, I’m pretty sure I know which option would come out on top. I certainly know which one I would have rather have read....more
This is a DNF review. Which means everything should be taken with a grain of salt. However, Harlequin Teen was kind enough to provide this ARC to me aThis is a DNF review. Which means everything should be taken with a grain of salt. However, Harlequin Teen was kind enough to provide this ARC to me and I felt I should at least take the time to explain why I couldn't make it all the way through.
It had something to do with this: [image]
The writing made me go: [image]
The Characters were like: [image]
And I had to stop before I was driven to: [image]
Maybe I should have kept up with it, because most people seem to really enjoy this book. But I found the writing extremely telling. The main character, Samantha tells us a lot about herself in a very awkward manner rather than showing us who she is. Thus I had very little invested in either her or Bishop. Since I didn't connect to her, I found it hard to connect to the world and to, in turn, stay interested in the novel.
It was like one of those avalanches started by a single stone. I don't want to hear that you were acting out because of your parent's divorce so you tried shoplifting and, since that didn't work, making out with your crush was another option. It was very disingenuous to me as a character voice and I couldn't relate to how she expressed herself. Sure, the back story is there but the emotion is not. The frustration, the sense of helplessness and impotence, the uncontrollable urge to lash out - all of this was missing and replaced with a fairly lucid, detached personality reflecting on her state of being with all the emotional investment that I usually give to my breakfast cereal.
I would suggest this book for fans of City of Bones or Twilight - but I would also suggest reading the first chapter and half and deciding whether you bond with the protagonist and the writing style before purchasing.
I should have known there’d be trouble in paradise when I found out that Morgan Rhodes was a non de plume for Michelle Rowen, who wrote that terrible I should have known there’d be trouble in paradise when I found out that Morgan Rhodes was a non de plume for Michelle Rowen, who wrote that terrible Dark Kiss novel that I couldn’t even finish.
I buddy read Falling Kingdom with ItsJaneLindsey who was my beloved BookBuddyAthon Buddy. And I think both of us suffered greatly as we read it together.
Falling Kingdoms is really Fantasy Lite with scarcely enough world building and concepts to skate by. If it asked me to witness it I’d be all like:
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Because who hasn’t pictured me as the megalomaniac god-figure of a desert dieselpunk cult?
To be honest, I was reading this book kind of like:
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Things are happening but I do not relate…
Things happened but it was hard to relate to anything through the cookie-cutter, 2 Dimensional characters and lacklustre plot.
Consider for a moment that you have three supposedly very different kingdoms. Though they are situationally VERY close (I mean like, a couple of days travel, it would seem, between them) everyone seems to speak the exact same language with the same inflections and manner of speaking. Whether it be princess of Auranos or poor peasant boy of Paelsia. Consider if you will, the fabulous ‘Enry ‘Iggins of Pygmalion glory who could guess a person’s birth place and where they were raised just by listening to their accent. Now of course, you can’t add accents very well into the book, but a little diversity in how people spoke and some slang would have been nice!
There’s this thing called a Cultural Iceberg. It’s a concept by Edward T Hall from all the way back in 1976, but he theorised that like an iceberg, culture has a small, visible surface, and a much larger, invisible mass, and that to truly know a culture, you have to participate in it. It’s just a theory, but I like to use models like this when I’m looking at cultural construct of fantasy novels.
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So little of what Rhodes wrote breached the depths of the cultural iceberg in terms of character and world building these three cultures. I didn’t even walk away with a solid concept of how people on Auranus dressed or what kind of homes the people in Limeros lived in. How did they raise their children? What did they think was beautiful? What did honour look like to them? What was proper etiquette in Paelsia? What did they take for granted? How did they treat their elderly? Damn it I want to know these things!
The characters were essentially very basic. One never truly got to know any of of them. The story follows the tales of Magnus, Lucia, Cleo and Jonah as they navigate this crumbling world.
Ah characters of Falling Kingdoms. If only I’d given three fifths of a fuck for any of you then this book might have turned out better.
In my opinion the writing was the worst culprit in this novel. Taking a cheese grater to my forehead might have been kinder. At one point, Magnus’s widdle heart turned to ice… because he was so heartbroken. It. Turned. To. Ice. The writing was enough to make purple prose embarrassed.
The one okay thing about this novel was that the plotting itself was at least reasonably consistent. There was always something happening, even if that something was ridiculous. Or poorly written. I felt the novel was fairly well paced.
Over all a sloppy attempt at fantasy. One that almost made me look upon The Kiss of Deception by Mary E Pearson with some measure of warmth and longing.
*This ARC was provided to me by the publisher. No money or gifts were exchanged for this review.
I want to make it clear that, all in all, this is not *This ARC was provided to me by the publisher. No money or gifts were exchanged for this review.
I want to make it clear that, all in all, this is not a bad book - so much as it's simply not a good book.
Dead of Night is continuation of the forbidden romance between Jesse, an almost vampire, and Catlyn, an almost Van Helsing. And the problem is that this story is almost readable - but like it's two main characters, it just can't seem to go all the way.
I'll try to give an example of what I mean.
"Jesse did even better than that; he set up a table and two chairs behind the back bookcases where we could work without being seen from the front of the shop. Then he carried out the first bin and began unloading it. I rolled up my sleeves and got started on the first tally sheet of the collection.
After he set down the first stack of books, he leaned over and gently touched the abrasion across the back of my wrist. "You hurt yourself.""
Look, you can't find too much technically wrong with the above writing. But, like the vast majority of this book, it's dry! It's bare, it's flavorless - bland. There is no flare, no spark and no passion.
Not between the characters, not in the writing, not in the plot or narrative.
There is nothing technically wrong with Viehl's novel. There's just not very much right about it either....more
I thought it was illegal to fail this hard without a permit.
I mean, if it were possible for a book to despise humanity and turn against people in genI thought it was illegal to fail this hard without a permit.
I mean, if it were possible for a book to despise humanity and turn against people in general, this would be its first step down the path to villainy.
This book is how they torture state secrets out of spies.
Reading this was like using a pineapple for a prostate exam.
In all honesty, it's not like there was a shortage of female protagonists who could charitably be described as useless, pathetic twats. I think Janie almost takes the cake as Queen of the Oxygen Thieves. I'd say she's more useless than someone who uses a Masterball on a Magikarp. She couldn't fight her way out of a paper bag if she had a map, GPS, and all her enemies were bunnies. Dead bunnies. If Kai wasn't there to wipe her ass for her, she stab herself with the toilet seat.
Her idea of a clever plan is to check both ways before getting stabbed with a knife.
I made it approximately halfway through the book in which she'd had about half a dozen fights with the supernatural. She didn't make it through a single one of them without Kai mysteriously showing up to rescue her. She's supposedly been trained since childhood for this position - presumably by the people who keep greenlighting Eddie Murphy movies, based entirely on the amount that Janie fails.
I guess what I was expecting was that someone who had spent years training as a feared warrior would be... competent? Able? Spend far less time on her ass watching other people do her job?
Kai was your requisite mysterious, dangerous, love interest. If you mistake him for a shadowy handpuppet reflection on your livingroom wall then you're not alone.
The writing is enough to make you weep with how disjointed, poorly structured and stagnant it is. The concept is convoluted and, frankly, laughably dumb. This is the cheesiest, silliest, worst homage to Buffy I've ever read. I had to check to see if it was trying to be ironic but, sadly, this was an honest attempt at story telling.
The only positive thing I have to say about this one?
In one regard, life has taught me not to expect too much from a Novella. Yet I think this one still managed to let down even my low expectations and IIn one regard, life has taught me not to expect too much from a Novella. Yet I think this one still managed to let down even my low expectations and I'm a little depressed about that.
Cate and her family are seers of the Fae and so must hide their abilities. Rook is a fae who stalks Cate, thinking she can't see him. Their paths collide when one of Cate's friends is kidnapped by the fae. She needs to get into the Fae world to get her friend back and he needs her to begin the Fae conquest of Earth. Also they fall in love and shag along the way.
And thus we come across our first issue and it is one in which the author has bitten off more than they can chew. This is, in its essence, a massive story to undertake in a novella.
Kidnappings? Peril to the human race? Forbidden hunky fairy love? You don't say! I'm intrigued. Tell me more.
Yet all of this is rather handled in the most cavalier way by the author, leaving the reader with desperate, gaping, plotholes and burning questions.
For starters, the kidnapped girl: Meg.
Before she is kidnapped, our only insight into this character is that she is someone who invites a friend to lunch, planning the entire time to ditch her for a preplanned date. This same friend is also a work colleague and she also plans (ahead of time) to ditch their important presentation for the aforementioned date and expects to still take half the credit for the work done.
Cate's gifting is hereditary, and she has several sisters. It's a gift she's had to hide her entire life. If the fae discover her gifting then she'll disappear forever as her mother once did. To reveal herself may put her family in extraordinary danger. She knows this. Keep all of that in mind when I tell you that she throws it out the window to save the friend I just described. Call me cruel, call me evil, call me a bitch. I don't care. There's no way I would endanger my life and my family for someone like that, and I don't think most normal people would either. I might even dust my hands off, kick my feet up and consider my life burdened with one less oxygen thief.
Secondly, Cate's brilliant scheme for getting the world's worst friend back is nonsensical.
Go to Fairyland + Hot Fairy + ? = profit getting friend back.
She doesn't have a plan. THIS is NOT a plan! This is a concept and a vague intention. Making out with a random Fairy and traipsing off into Fairyland with a) no way to return home, b) no plans or assurances this Fairy will help you or c) absolutely no clue what you're doing is not clever thinking!
Rook's characterization is, if possible, even more aggravating. He's been stalking this girl since she was sixteen and not once has she given a hint of her abilities. He is right there watching when her supposed friend is kidnapped right in front of her. Of all the days to reveal her abilities and seduce him, she chooses that day. Look, kids, this is not hard maths here. It doesn't take leaps and bounds in logic to assume the woman has a hidden agenda. Yet Rook is shocked, shocked I say, when he realizes that she came with him to fairy in order to retrieve her friend.
Lastly, and perhaps the most aggravating aspect of this novel. He is a fairy. They're planning to invade our planet, subvert our autonomy and replace us as supreme rulers of earth. There is no convincing him otherwise. As a human being, her reaction to all of this is?
[image] Doesn't matter; had sex. Thanks, Cate. Sold out your whole race for Fairy Peen. Good job there.
I probably shouldn't have read this. If you read the pre-read section at the bottom of the review, you'll see that I didn't even intend to order it. YI probably shouldn't have read this. If you read the pre-read section at the bottom of the review, you'll see that I didn't even intend to order it. Yet, since I had it, I thought I'd give it a go.
I lasted 24 pages because that's all my sanity could take.
Laurel is a magazine-beautiful, waif-like teenager who leaves homeschooling in grade 10 in order to begin her high school career.
The comment could fly past as poor characterization and sloppy writing if it didn't go hand in hand with Laurel's horrible relationship with food. In fact, a great deal of emphasis is placed on what she eats. Once again, not entirely a problem except attention is also placed on how she feels when she eats. Which is guilty and "like a battle has been lost" when she eats half a pear and half a cup of juice.
[image] I know, Nickhun, I know.
The writing is just terrible and the characterization can't even be mentioned because I'm pretty sure Goodread's lax profanity rules would not cover what I would end up saying.
Mostly, it's all so very saccharine sweet and ickly chaste, yet oddly kinky and unbelievably tame. I feel like I'm describing Disneyland here, but if I do, that might make people think of fun. Notice I deliberately left fun off the list. But, luckily, there was comparable amounts of vomit.
Spoilers below, folks.
Apparently. APPARENTLY, Laurel is not actually a human, but a fairy. And the reason she is a vegan is because she is a plant. Like, as in, she is not a red blooded mammal but is an actual plant...
I'm sorry, I'm going to need a judge's ruling on that.
[image] Thank you. Steve Carell. I think you've said it all.
Look, you just. You don't do that. You just...don't. I mean, what school of biology did you go to? The Stephanie Meyer School of Biology, that's what!
I mean, and correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't 8th grade biology talk a lot about how plants photosynthesize to make energy and how they do respire but at night when there's no light and about how they don't have things like digestive systems and they don't have blood but, hey they do have Chloroplasts and Chlorophylls. And how they don't digest nutrients by eating them but by absorbing them through their roots. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of thought put into this.
I mean, look at organs like the brain. How does her brain work? They need A LOT Of protein. A huge amount actually. Which you can get by eating a healthy vegan diet, but she's not even doing that.
Scientists don't look at an ape-like creature and have this conversation:
"So, Doctor Rosenbaum, what do you think it is? Mammal? Reptile? Plant? Rock?" "I don't know. I just don't know. If only there was some way of determining these things! Look, just to be safe, put it down as a bird. Just because it doesn't fly - doesn't mean it can't!"
I used to think that the old troll argument of, "You're overthinking it! Stop thinking so much and you'll enjoy it!" was full of shit. But, in this case, they're right. My highly developed mammalian brain just can not handle this level of stupidity. But even if I could somehow switch it off. Well, there enough other bad stuff in here that would spoil it anyway.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm reading this. For some reason I thought there was some controversy over this author and that I'd barred it, but it's not on my Do Not Read shelf so I must have been mistaken.
I went to pick up books from the library this afternoon and it was among them. I don't clearly remember ordering it so I asked for the order date and went home to Mr. Kennedy. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "Hey honey, was I drinking heavily on the 15th of December?" Mr Kennedy: "Hmmm...the 15th was a Thursday. That's Corona day." Me: "Ugh. Okay, definitely drunk. That explains it." Mr Kennedy: "Let me guess, you found traffic cones and police hats again?" Me: *Thinks for a second* "That probably would have been the preferable outcome."
Kat Kennedy
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