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.
[image]
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.
[image]
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
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:
[image]
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:
[image]
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.
[image]
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.
Twilight, True Love and You: Seven Secret Steps to Finding Your Edward or Jacob
Alternative title: Thank You, Gullible Twilight Fans, For My New SportsTwilight, True Love and You: Seven Secret Steps to Finding Your Edward or Jacob
Alternative title: Thank You, Gullible Twilight Fans, For My New Sports Car
Alternative, Alternative title: Holy fuck the Scientologists were right. Psychologists are evil.
Because Louise Deacon is a psychologist as per her author profile.
My name is Louise Deacon, and Im [sic] a clinical psychologist and university tutor with 20 years experience in helping people who are facing a difficult point in their lives.
If, for some unfathomable reason, that doesn't reassure your suspicions, then please note - I did actually check on the British Psychological Society and found a Ms. L A Deacon CPsychol AFBPsS, living in Surrey, on their register.
This review is for the first, free chapters of the book available on Amazon.
The first thing I wish to share with you is the Table of Contents:
Secret 1: The Power of Twilight Revealed
Hahahahahhahahahaha! Hahahahahahahahaahahaa! Okay, I have that out of my system. Moving on!
Discover why Edward and Jacob appeal to your deepest human needs
*Snort* Sorry. Continue.
Chapter 1: Will you find your Edward? Will you find your Jacob [sic] Chapter 2: Why Edward and Jacob have captured your heart Chapter 3: Twilight: The Ultimate Romance Chapter 4: Edward and Jacob are Gods and you Need Them Now Secret 2: Discover the Hidden Dangers of Your Romantic Imagination: Understand how Twilight has shaped the way you look at men.
[image] Pause to think those lines over. Twilight is the ultimate romance and Edward and Jacob are Gods that you need now.
Chapter 5: Twilight and Your Love Life Chapter 6: Twilight Has Raised The Bar For Men Too High Secret 3: Loving a Human Examine the truth about your feelings for Edward and Jacob, and find out why only a human can fulfill your needs as a woman.
[image] You mean I have to fall in love with a human?! Get the fuck out!
Chapter 7: You Need a Real Man in Your Life, Not a God in Human Form Chapter 8: Wonderful, Wonderful Men Secret 4: Knowing Yourself: Explore Bella's character and needs in a relationship, and discover how to learn more about your own character and needs.
Can I just say, I have so, so much to learn about life from Bella Swan. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Chapter 9: How Well Do You Know Yourself Chapter 10: Bella's Self Awareness Chapter 11: Insights From Your Relationship History Chapter 12: How To Be More Self-aware: Bella, Edward's and Jacob's Personalities Secret 5: How to Get A Deep Insight Into Your Boyfriend: Examine how Bella saw Edward and how you can uncover the truth about your boyfriend's personality.
First step: Google Second step: Background check Third step: hacking his email, stalking him on social networks, following him around town and building a shrine to him in your bedroom. Fourth step: Unibomber.
[image]
Chapter 13: Why The Truth About a Man is Hard to See Chapter 14: How to Be a Good Judge of Men Chapter 15: How to Learn More About Your Boyfriend Secret 6: How to Know if Your Relationship Really Works: Learn how Bella and Edward worked as a couple and the ways you can develop insight into how your relationship works.
I love the phrasing of that sentence. "How Bella and Edward worked as a couple." Mostly because it makes me hope that I was reading a completely different book to a CLINICAL FUCKING PSYCHOLOGIST! If not... I'm fucked. I obviously have really unhealthy ideas about love.
Chapter 16: Are You Suited to Each Other Chapter 17: What Your Arguments Say About Your Relationship: Bella's Fights With Edward Chapter 18: Do You Love Him As He Is Secret Seven: How To Predict Your Future With Your Boyfriend: Discover how to predict your future together.
I predict that I will be very drunk by the time this review is written.
Chapter 19: Will He Love You in The Way You Need Chapter 20: Is He Your Edward? Is He Your Jacob [sic] Chapter 21: Why Your Relationship Decisions - and Twilight - Are Important: This book will deepen your understanding of Twilight
Look, I promise I'll never say a word against Twilight again if. You'll. Just. STOP. Please...PLEASE don't deepen my understanding of Twilight.
The first chapter doesn't seem too bad because it mostly starts out by saying that Twilight can cause girls to have unsatisfactory relationships.
However, then occasional sexism comes in. Naturally, you're a girl and you can't have a fulfilling life without a man. It's biology, don't you know? Here's your complimentary Edward - completely with batshit insanity and abuse.
One day, I'd like a book to mention that there is this shiny, hard thing you can get and it will never stalk you.
The end of chapter one, however, reveals a startling secret that no one, NO ONE has ever before considered. To have a successful relationship, you need to both know yourself, and choose a good partner who meets your needs.
CALL THE PRESS! NO! CALL THE PRESIDENT OF WHATEVER COUNTRY YOU'RE IN! Everyone needs to know this now! Deacon has stumbled upon mystic knowledge of the Twilight and we must all take note.
Chapter 2: Edward reminds you of your mother and that's why you love him.
[image]
Also: Men are attracted to the way you look.
No shit... I'm writing this down!
Also: You like sexy men.
Go on! Tell me more!
To prove this, Deacon cleverly slips in a parable of two different men - one incredibly fit and strong, and the other tubby and out of shape. Who would you chose?
Brilliant. Masterful. I am in awe.
Also: Warrior men, prepared to fight for their women is "music to the female soul".
Apparently Edward restores Bella's self-esteem. I'm still waiting to see evidence of this.
I don't think I really need to say anything else. By this point in the review writing process, I'm impressively drunk. I couldn't get through those two chapters without imbibing liberally. These chapters don't actually contain any wisdom from Twilight, because there is no great relationship wisdom to gain from Twilight. Except for, "don't!" I guess...
It's pretty clear from these two chapters that the author never intends her readers to find their own Edward or Jacob. Nor does there really appear to be any secrets here. AND IS DEACON EVEN YOUR REAL NAME?!
I don't know, but of one thing I'm convinced. Whilst typing this review, and getting superbly sloshed, my head fell onto the keyboard and this text appeared:
About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him — and I didn’t know how potent that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.
Kat Kennedy
>
Books:
why-god-why
(7)
Loading...
