Truthwitch » Review

I can't believe what I'm about to write. Truthwitch was possibly THE most anticipated book of the winter YA publishing season.  It was THE book at BEA last year and has been getting buzz, buzz, buzz for months.  I could not WAIT to get my paws on a copy.

But there were signs.

I read the first few chapters on NetGalley.  I had some problems, some issues, but I patted them aside. Lie at rest, issues, I whispered.

Then the book came out and I read it.  Well, I read about 60-70% of it.  Then I just... stopped.

I STOPPED.

I was frustrated, yeah, but I also didn't care.  And I honestly wanted one of the main characters to die, just a little.

But seriously, I just could not get behind characters who were such petty, selfish, BRATS.

One of the best pieces of writing criticism I've ever read mentions how we, as readers, learn so much from the actions of our characters when we're introduced to them. When we meet Safiya and Iseult, they're robbing someone, something they do frequently.  When I first read that, I thought, what for? It turns out, they just want more money. Okay, whatever.

But then, the characters consistently acted like douchebags.  They trashed the property of their friends, they stole horses from their owners, they ran those horses down into the dirt like they were sports cars in an action movie, not animals.  They would douche-ely yell things like "sorry!" and "I need this!" to the people they stole from as they ran away. Assholes.

Safiya in particular was intolerable.  She was vain and temperamental on top of being selfish. There was one part of the book where she admires herself in a silken dress, or whatever, and it's SO vain and stupid that I simply couldn't take it.  Me and Safiya couldn't be friends after that point.

I realize that I'm writing about these characters like they're real.  I understand that they're constructions of Dennard's.  To which I can only think, did she intend for readers to have a totally different response to these characters? Or what?

The only character I liked was the bloodwitch, Aeduan, not because he was a saint, (quite the contrary), but because his motives were realistic and valid.  To that, he is SUPPOSED to have a villainous tint to him, and that made him appealing to me instead of gross.

On top of the characters being problematic, I shied away from the writing.  It was written in a cinematic style, and by cinematic, I mean B-movie.  Guys whip of their shirts just so the female can shudder over the manly breadth of their shoulders. Maybe I'm a-romantic, but that shit is so silly to me. And the fight scenes. The fight scenes were like that part in Daredevil when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner fight on a seesaw. It was ridiculous.

As for good aspects, the political intrigue had promise, Iseult's character is salvageable, and Aeduan is creepy awesome. Everything else was — sorry — stinky garbage.

I'm sorry.  I'm just so, so sorry.

Burning Glass » Review

Burning Glass wasn't perfect by any means, but I was enraptured nonetheless.  I am always on the lookout for a good romantic fantasy, trying to relive the glory that is Graceling, and while Purdie's novel doesn't come close to that genre standard, it was a very promising start. I blazed through this book.

The story follows a young woman, Sonya, who is an auraseer — a person with the power to read the emotions of others.  Every identified auraseer in the kingdom of Riaznin must be trained by an order, in preparation for serving the crown.  And the crown needs the help of auraseers more than ever, because the political climate is tumultuous: taxes are high, people are starving, and the legitimacy of the new emperor is in question.

Sonya, our protagonist, eluded conscription for seventeen years, growing up with freedom, before being discovered and sent to the auraseers' remote, wintry covent. As the story opens, Sonya, who has been mercilessly ostracized by her new peers, is rendered insane by the ravenous hunger of a raiding party of peasants. Driven mad with empathetic hunger, she triggers a series of events which has devastating consequences.

As a consequence of these events, Sonya is sent to the home of the emperor to serve as his auraseer.  She tumbles straight into a pit of court intrigue and a nasty feud — between two brothers, who were raised separately and who are almost like strangers to each other. Burning Glass most definitely has an "out of the frying pan, into the fire," element to it.

The style of narration is first person, and highly introspective.  We receive a lot of detail about what Sonya is feeling at any given moment, and those feelings often wavered and were definitely inconsistent.  This almost made Sonya an unlikable character for me, and I have no doubt that it'll be too much for some readers. However, I found myself getting behind Sonya, even when she made questionable choices.

There is quite a hefty love triangle in this book, by the by, which is resolved before the story's end, thankfully.  Usually, I cannot abide that kind of geometry in my literature, but I felt that the romantic complications were well integrated into the storyline in Burning Glass.  Part of the whole point of the book is that Sonya stands between the two brothers, Anton and Valko.  They are like those two friends you have, who, for some reason, just hate each other and won't get along.  The one thing they have in common is that they like you.

It makes for some intriguing drama, that had me riveted, in between my eye rolling.

Ultimately, I think this was a fabulous and promising debut.  I am going to read the sequel, with absolutely no hesitation, and while I hesitate to recommend the book to readers who are allergic to youthful drama, I can say without reservations, that I really enjoyed reading Burning Glass.

 

Nimona » Review

I found Nimona at my library, tucked into those little display stands that librarians use in lieu of shaking you and saying, read this!  Those displays always catch my attention, and Nimona caught mine doubly because of the striking girl on the cover — the eponymous Nimona.

I saw her and immediately thought of Eleanor, from Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor and Park.  Eleanor, with her wide hips and big boobs — a future bombshell body in its awkward, early stages.  But nothing about Nimona says awkward.  She's dressed in a chain-mail accented mini-dress, proudly showing off her knee dimples.  She has a punk rock haircut, the kind that's mostly buzz-cut that you need confidence to pull off.  All of that, and she's standing in the center, slightly in front of, two grown men.

Her expression is fierce, and joyful at the same time, like she's saying to you, Betcha don't have the guts to pick up my story! 

Needless to say, I picked up the book and checked it out.  What I discovered was a graphic novel full of "humor and heart," as Rowell herself puts it in her blurb of the book.

Artist and author Noelle Stevenson creates a world that combines classic fantasy elements with science fiction.  (It works better than you might think!) In that world she's planted Ballister Blackheart and Ambrosius Goldenloin, two former boyhood friends and schoolmates who whose relationship turned sour after a gruesome jousting "accident."  Now men, Blackheart has become a loathed villain, while Goldenloin is a celebrated knight for the 'Institution.'  Then, their world of bad-guy-and-hero spins off its axis with the arrival of Nimona on Blackheart's doorstep.  She's his new sidekick, "sent from the agency!"

Nimona looks and acts like a rambunctious girl, but she quickly proves to be more than she seems...

[caption id="attachment_1433" align="aligncenter" width="399" class="imagepro-polaroid "] These rough panels are taken from the original webcomic. The artwork in the book has been sharpened and refined.[/caption]

She's a shapeshifter! It's the perfect metaphor for Nimona's character, too, because just when you think you've got her figured out, she evolves.  She's a wonderfully complex character, constantly shifting while staying consistent.  I'd love to discuss her character in more depth, but I also don't dare to give anything away!  All I'll say is that Nimona was more than I could have imagined.

As for the art... I loved it!  It's presented to us in a sketchy style, with exaggerated shapes and figures.  The backgrounds are simple and muted, letting the colors and lines of the characters pop. What I'd like to know is — can Noelle Stevenson do more, or was she drawing at her best?  If the former, I'd have liked to see her push herself a little farther.  If the latter, then she did well working within her skill boundaries.

In regards to the storyline and writing, that is where Nimona could see some improvement.  The plot, aside from everything Nimona, was quite simple... "classic" if you want to put it nicely, and "cliched" if you don't.  I found some of the names and titles in the book to be a little too simple and slapdash for my tastes.  The 'Institution.' Really? And as for Blackheart and Goldenloin... well, I would have liked their characters to be a little less predictable and categorized.

But, overall, if you love graphic novels, this won't be a title you'll want to miss, especially if you want to read about a diverse and complex female character.  I hope Nimona steals your heart as much as it did mine.

 

Ruin and Rising » Review

I can't believe it's over!  I remember the first time I read book one... It's like a Disneyland commercial — Never Forget the Magic!  ...And then I waited years to read book two, well past its release. Way, way past.

Why did I do this, when I loved Shadow and Bone so much?  I think it was because I was terrified over what would happen to the characters.  I didn't want to read about them getting maimed, or dying, or never being quite the same, like Frodo, at the end of Lord of the Rings.  Because I knew something like that had to happen to make the serious epic and serious and all that.

But, I'm pleased to say that I finally bit the bullet and read Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising back to back, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be!  That's not to say there wasn't maiming, death, and Frodo-fate, because there was. All of that happened, but my heart is still intact.

After a bit of weird pacing in Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising had a steadier pace and I enjoyed the book more than the middle installment but less than Shadow and Bone.  There were some really excellent plot twists that had me gasping and a proper, finished ending that left me satisfied.  (Granted, my ship sailed, so I had reason to be pleased.)

There's not much I can say about the plot without giving things away.  It wasn't a perfect construction, but I found it to be structurally sound.  My main quibble is that the climax was rather abrupt and a tad of a letdown.  I was expecting a bit more of a drawn-out, epic battle, but we got a skirmish instead.

As for the out of control love rhombus in Siege and Storm, well, it settled the fuck down in Ruin and Rising, thank God.  Things were handled quite skillfully and gracefully in my opinion. (Again, my ship sailed.)  There were plenty of swoony moments in the text, especially after a certain twist took place.  It was a great moment where plot and relationships collide and the effect was just excellent.

Overall, this isn't a book that I ever should have been scared to read, although it definitely kept my heart racing, wondering where the next betrayal was coming from, when the Darkling would manifest to wreck havoc, and what the third amplifier would do to Alina.  It was a magnificent conclusion to a great series.

Shadow and Bone » Review

Even though it was years ago, I still remember when I first read Shadow and Bone.  I started it in the evening... see where this is going? Yes, rays of light were poking through the windows by the time I finished the book.  Those rays of light were so fitting, let me tell you.

The book's premise isn't super unique.  There is a girl who manifest super special powers and finds out she must save her country (and the world!) from evil.  But, you know, there's a reason that general premise is so popular.  It's super compelling.  Add to that Bardugo's Russian inspired setting, vivid description, and worldbuilding and we have something special on our hands.

Alina Starkov, our protagonist, is an unlikely Chosen One.  She's prickly, scrawny, and ordinary. Oh yeah, and really grumpy and insecure.  She's a character that you only sometimes admire, but always root for.  Our villain is the Darkling, an almost omnipotent "grisha,"  who can summon and manipulate darkness.  He's almost a deity and he is pretty freaky.  I rate him up with Sauran in my list of "Near Impossible to Beat Literary Antagonists."  Many readers find him dishy, but I don't feel that way.  This character is a bad person.

As I mentioned before, the setting is in a Russian inspired country at the beginning of its industrial age.  The fitting term used by Bardugo to describe her genre, is "czarpunk."  Our story starts out with teenage Alina conscripted as a mapmaker's apprentice in the national Ravkan army.  Maybe it's due to all of the World War II footage I've seen in my schooldays, but I could picture so vividly the chilly landscape and dirty roads that the army stops through in our opening scenes. Also conscripted in her regiment is Alina's best friend and childhood soulmate, Mal.  Poor Alina has a serious case of the loves for Mal, which, again, isn't exactly original, but was very compelling regardless.

But I'm dancing around the main hook of the story.  There is a magic system in Bardugo's word.  Much like Kristin Cashore's Graceling, certain people are born with powers that bend the laws of the natural world.  These grisha are powerful figures in Ravka, and comprise an army led by their most powerful member, the Darkling.  As mentioned previously, the Darkling summons darkness.  His foil, a summoner of light, has not been discovered. Untiiiiil...

There now, doesn't that intrigue you?

As for faults, I found the middle portion of the book to sag slightly compared with Shadow and Bone's powerhouse opening and ending.  Alina could be insufferable at times, but it's understandable, as she's at the beginning of her character arc.  Got to start from somewhere, right.

All in all, this is a five star YA read and Leigh Bardugo has emerged as a top author in the genre.  If you like YA lit in the slightest, this isn't a book you'll want to pass over.

The Sin Eater's Daughter » Review

"Who will save me?"

The real question is what could've saved this book?

Having a stronger heroine, or at least a stronger character arc.

Many reviewers have noted how Twylla is a weak character. It's true — she is highly reactive. Throughout the entire book, Twylla instigates nothing of importance. All of her actions are in response to other characters and forces; she's pushed around. It makes for a boring protagonist and a boring read. Twylla's passivity would have been okay as a starting point for a larger character arc, but such development never materialized. Having such a lame lead character was a deathblow to the novel.

Developing the hook of the story further.

The hook for this story is that, as a goddess embodied, Twylla's touch causes death. That's pretty awesome. Many people were predicting The Sin Eater's Daughter would hold similarities to Graceling because of this. I wish! However, Twylla's is too frightened of her ability to do anything but execute selected people selected by higher-ups. She is so afraid of herself, she spends the rest of her time practically rocking in a corner. I longed for her to either embrace her gifts or to endeavor to find out more about them so she could understand them and, you know, weild them. This never happens.

Presenting a less cartoonish villain.

Our antagonist is an evil queen. Salisbury does a fantastic job at making her quite diabolical. However, she's never fleshed out and made three-dimensional. There was a gross and shocking reveal at the end of the book that fell flat for me because the queen's motivations were never revealed or even hinted at. Boo.

Getting rid of that ridiculous love triangle.

Maybe this is a matter of personal preference, but I, in almost all cases, believe love triangles weaken a story. I'm not opposed to forces getting in the way of a relationship, but love triangles come with a whole host of problems. They can make characters seem pathetic by appearing weak-willed and not self-aware or decisive. They can also hijack and plot and turn things into dumb soap operas. In The Sin Eater's Daughter, both the characters and plot are diminished because of the cheap drama.

Forming a more coherent plot.

Nothing streamlined occurs in The Sin Eater's Daughter. Horribly, Twylla is given nothing to do. I longed for there to be a mystery for her to solve or a journey to go on. Any kind of action. But nothing happens.

Bottom line is, the book wasn't a total disaster but it was still irredeemably flawed. Two stars.

Book Review: When

It's really rare that I buy a book without having read it first, but I made an exception for When, since I was on vacation.  I wish I'd saved the ten bucks.

When has an interesting premise, albeit one that is very similar to Rachel Ward's Numbers.  Maddie Flynn knows the deathdate of every person she sees.  She has a reasonably lucrative business running with her momager, reading deathdates for a price.  But, when she correctly predicts the date that a young boy is murdered, she lands herself in a world of trouble.

The book begins strongly, I felt.  It's nothing new under the sun, for sure, but it was pleasant in the sense that it's classic YA pulp.  It reminded me of the good old days of my teenage years, reading battered paperback "Jenny Carrol" (AKA Meg Cabot) books. However, my enjoyment of When started to deteriorate sharply as the pages kept turning.

My main complaint was the pacing.  The plot starts grinding quickly enough, but then it stalls.  Maddie, our protagonist, falls apart and reacts passively to all her troubles, making for a boring, frustrating reading experience.  I mean, I fall apart and react passively enough in my own life.  I don't want to deal with that nonsense in a pulpy, escapist fiction!  In fact, I made a note on my kindle at the exact moment that Maddie takes initiative.  It was at the 72% mark.

By the time that Maddie takes the bull by the horns, she's was beyond redemption.  Compounding the situation were other issues.  Laurie, our author, attempted to draw out her mystery by keeping Maddie oblivious to certain clues and preventing her from making simple inferences and connections.  As a result, Maddie came across as dumb.  Dumb as a bag of hammers.

So, what could buoy a book with a turgid plot and a poorly drawn protagonist? Supporting characters? Blah.  They were unimpressive.  Romance?  Dead On Arrival.  Beautiful prose?  Not hardly.

I strongly recommend that you pass on this one.

Vicious Review

I am kicking myself for not having picked up Vicious sooner.  I knew it was well-received, but for some reason I thought the book would be boring.  I'm not sure why I got that impression, but I was wrong, wrong, WRONG! Vicious was a complete and total page-whipper!

The book opens with a man, Victor, and a young girl, Sydney, digging up a grave.  Quickly, we learn that this grisly task is all part of a mad scheme for revenge, years in the making.  Victor has just broken out of jail.  And he has one hell of a grudge against his old college roommate, Eli.

This decision to pit two former college roommates against each other is just inspired.  In my experience, your relationship with your college roommate is one of the most intense and bizarre relationships you ever have.  You're both "young adults," living in an oxymoronic state, under the influence of higher education, sleep deprivation, intoxication, and whatever the hell else you put into your system.  Your roommate becomes in turn, your friend, your ally, your enemy, your obsession, your nightmare. V. E. Schwab deftly captures all of these dynamics that bounce between Victor and Eli.

Eli and Victor's vortex of envy and murderous loathing begins ten years before the current events of the novel, when they choose their college thesis topics.  Victor chooses to study [spoiler]adrenaline.[/spoiler]  Eli chooses to research [spoiler]ExtraOrdinary abilities.[/spoiler]  The events that follow, during their spring semester of their senior year, are shocking.

Of course, Eli and Victor have back-up personnel to aid them.  Two talented sisters, Sydney and Serena, find themselves on separate sides of the vendetta.  And of course, Victor has his cell-mate and break-out buddy, Mitch.  And there's the dog, Dol.  All of these labels — hero, villain, sidekick, mascot — get tossed around and mixed up.  Who is who?

These characters were all fantastic.  I especially appreciated Victor.  He was a highly complex character, but Schwab still managed to keep him consistent.  I was at times, horrified by Victor's decisions, but somehow kept rooting for the man.  I loved hating the self-righteous Eli. Sydney and Serena were used as effective foils to Victor and Eli's twisted brotherhood.  I appreciated what it said about the nature of conflict that these two mirror-image sisters wound up on opposite sides of someone else's fight.  And Mitch was a steady column of normalcy and reason that balanced the other characters out. These were fabulous players in a fabulous plot.

The pacing was also a strong point in Schwab's novel.  The narrative flipped around in time, but this hardly phased me.  At first, I had a preference for the present events over the past, but very soon I was fully engaged in the entire story, past and present.  I was so absorbed in the book that at times I forgot that I was flipping paper pages and reading symbols made of dried ink.  I was inside the story.  What a  rare and wonderful experience!

So, in short, I HIGHLY recommend this book.  Five north stars out of five!

The Diviners Review

I've been thinking...  I've started recording and posting video reviews, but have come up against some problems.  First, I never get to say everything I want about a book in the video.  Under the harsh red recording eyeball I lose my train of thought more often than not.  I'm still figuring out how to prepare for speaking out loud to my computer in an empty room about books.  Second, I don't want to post a bunch of videos to the blog without offering some meatier content.

So, I decided that with each video review, I'm going to write a review to go along with it.  That way, I'll produce a more thorough review and have fuller posts! Perfect!

So, The Diviners. It was published in late 2012,  and its critical reception was largely favorable.  This book was written by Libba Bray, who enjoyed commercial success with her A Great and Terrible Beauty series, and critical acclaim with her novel Going Bovine.  The book follows a young woman, Evie O'Neil, during 1926.

Like Bray's protagonist of Terrible Beauty, Gemma Doyle, Evie O'Neil is a girl with special powers.  She can psychically read objects.  She has trouble keeping what she learns from this power a secret, however, and soon lands in hot water when she makes an accusation against a prominent citizen in the Ohio town where she resides.  She's bustled off to live with her uncle in New York City.  Her uncle, it so happens, owns and operates an occult museum.

“There is no greater power on this earth than story.” Will paced the length of the room. “People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense—words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions—words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History.” Will grabbed the sheaf of newspaper clippings he kept in a stack on his desk. “This, and these”—he gestured to the library’s teeming shelves—“they’re a testament to the country’s rich supernatural history.”

Despite her own gifts, Evie is skeptical of the museum and her uncle at first.  But when her uncle is called as a specialist during a murder investigation, she winds up falling down a supernatural rabbit hole.

“Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on. Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells 'em off for a coupla stones.”

I give the book three and a half stars.  While it had fantastic elements, there were some strong weaknesses as well.  In regards to the well done aspects, the book's setting is overwhelmingly the best part of the book.  You can tell that Bray put in an enormous amount of research to get the right 20's atmosphere down.  A lot of times, when reading historical fiction, the modern language and voice pull me out of the period.  But, with The Diviners, every detail helps add to the jazz age allure.

The book also has a strong protagonist.  Evie is a great character — a flapper, smart, sassy, and vivacious.  She is always ready with a wisecrack.

“Your mother and I do not approve of drinking. Have you not heard of the Eighteenth Amendment?”

“Prohibition? I drink to its health whenever I can.”

Evangeline — a hilarious name for this skeptic character — dazzles brightly off the page, while still retaining emotional depth.

“She was tired of being told how it was by this generation, who’d botched things so badly. They’d sold their children a pack of lies: God and country. Love your parents. All is fair. And then they’d sent those boys, her brother, off to fight a great monster of a war that maimed and killed and destroyed whatever was inside them. Still they lied, expecting her to mouth the words and play along. Well, she wouldn’t. She knew now that the world was a long way from fair. She knew the monsters were real.”

Now, onto the stuff I didn't like so much.  I think the book needs huge amounts of editing.  The story follows two other characters, Memphis Campbell and Theta Knight.  Three points of view were largely extraneous, I thought.  The book would have been stronger with a good deal of extraneous storyline shaved off, and extra narrative perspectives don't make the cut.

Second, I thought the romance was bland! This isn't a critical failure on the book's part, or anything, but a compelling romance makes a golden story, in my opinion.  I'm waiting to see how things unfold in the sequel in this regard.

So, that's that.  I don't go into greater depth in my video, but there is the added bonus of facial expressions!