Friday, December 28, 2012

2012: The Year Everyone Lost Their Heads

I blame the Mayans for all the author/book drama in 2012. If they hadn't said the world was going to end this year and LIED, maybe fewer people would have been asshats. For everyone who wants a record of what went on so they can go back and laugh at it, I give you a recap of 2012 in drama! Grab some popcorn because this will be a long one. This won't be a comprehensive list because there are so damn many dramas big and small, but I'll recount some of the more well-known, entertaining, or personally important ones.

Links are compiled thanks to the list of books I won't read due to the authors behaving badly, the lovely ladies at Cuddlebuggery and the occasional Scandalous Scandals/Controversy section of Buzzworthy News, my black-belt Google-fu, and scouring for links on Goodreads.

JANUARY

This month was especially bad. Oh Lord, this month was awful. The First Five Days of Goodreads recounts this well, though more than a few links are altered or dead now.

Dan Krokos

Before 2012 even started, my friend Kira posts a pre-review of Tempest by Julie Cross criticizing the portrayal of a man-hater as a feminist. Author Dan Krokos criticizes her about her criticism and in the new year, he took it to Twitter and a whole bunch of authors joined in to bash Goodreads. People who jumped in on this whether or not they KNEW what the hashtag they jumped into was about included Lauren DeStefano, Courtney Allison Moulton, Pam van Hylckama, Bill Cameron, Rachel Hawkins, and Jessica Corra. All but Hawkins and Cameron apologized. Krokos apologized too and is genuinely sorry about what he did, as he expressed in this in an interview with The Midnight Garden. Most have forgiven him.

Just about all the links are dead on that one because Kira removed Tempest from her Goodreads shelf, so the Midnight Garden interview is the only one I can provide. Sorry 'bout that, folks.

Leigh Fallon

Steph Sinclair, one of the lovely ladies behind Cuddlebuggery, got forwarded an email originall written by Leigh Fallon. In it, Fallon calls her a cow and tries to get people to downvote her review and other negative reviews of Carrier of the Mark on Amazon while upvoting the positive reviews. After some questions about whether or not Fallon wrote it, there is confirmation she really did do it. Fallon apologized, but that didn't help matters much. A lot of people (including me) still have her marked as Do Not Read.

Jamie McGuire

Sophie on Goodreads writes a negative review of Beautiful Disaster and the author decides it's a good idea to post about it and tweet saying it's attacking her readers. Hm, the itty bitty Goodeads reviewer (at the time) getting swamped by trolls who get so bad that she often deletes comments (as is her right) or the author with a legion of fans... I know who I side with!

Jane Litte of Dear Author fame and McGuire battle it out a little on Twitter and for now, that's the end of that. This won't be the last time you see McGuire in this post.

 Julie Halpern

ALL the links to what Halpern said are dead now, so I'll quote Cuddlebuggery's summation of it:
Julie Halpern writes a personal attack on Allison’s recent review of Don’t Stop Now.  The blogger world reels from the ridiculousness of it all.  Then a rash of discussion breaks out.

She posts a second blog post.  It is not an apology.  She blames the bloggers for being too sensitive and justifies her attack.

A third and final blog post is written demanding bloggers stop being so upset about her offensive posts.

The bloggers agree, forgive her and rush to buy her new book.  Then they all die from a sarcasm overload.
Quotes from Halpern in those posts include:

 I fucking hate people who write nasty reviews!

Ugh! I didn't make it up, beyotch! (addressed to reviewer)
(source)

(Fun fact: this one happened on my 18th birthday. Not the gift I wanted.)

Kiera Cass

This one is more Cass's agent Elana Roth. Roth decided it was a good idea to call Goodreads/The Midnight Garden reviewer Wendy Darling a bitch on Twitter because Wendy had the audacity to not like The Selection. Cass never objected to it, so I consider that implicit agreement. They both sent apologies that Wendy didn't think sounded too sincere.

FEBRUARY

Longtime problem author Vanity, aka Melissa Douthit, is finally banned from Goodreads, along with 27 of her sockpuppets/friends. Other than that, February was calm. Hallelujah! Unfortunately, this isn't anywhere close to the last we see of Douthit.

MARCH

Jamie McGuire

I told you Jamie McGuire was going to make a comeback! This time, she's attacking a review on Amazon for calling her book YA--despite the fact that she asked fans to vote for her novel in the YA category in the GR Choice awards a few months before. Backtracking: she needs a better bicycle for that. Dead link to the blog post where she tried to get people to vote, but I have this status update and this comment. She also fails to understand the definition of a personal attack.

Then one of McGuire's author friends, Steph Campbell, decides to pipe up. Bad idea.

ANOTHER of McGuire's friends, Jessica Park, also whines about people giving her three stars and then trying to friend her on Goodreads. Oh, the humanity!

Shannon Hale

Hale decided to tweet her opinion of three-star reviews on on Goodreads. Once again, bad idea. Would have gone better had she not failed at letting it go and smoothing things over.

Then we have a small something courtesy of Michelle Wolfson, who takes issue with the fact that some people didn't like The Selection by Kiera Cass. She's also okay with Cass's agent Elena Roth calling Wendy a bitch and calls Wendy an idiot while she's at it. Surprisingly few people cared.

APRIL

Rebecca Hamilton

There are no words for this lady. Consult Cuddlebuggery and this review for more. While talking to Kat Kennedy, she compares a bad review to rape. Just about everything you expect to see happen because of stuff like that happens.

Sue Dent

So in the comments section of a review, Sue Dent has a meltdown over someone looking at the sample pages of her book and not liking it. Her bad reaction includes wanting to run the commenter over. Black humor: not always a good idea. There are also T-shirts.

The Story Siren

This was one of the largest scandals of the year: major YA reviewer Kristi, aka The Story Siren, was found to be plagiarizing other bloggers' material. I made a post on it, so check it out if you want the full story. Basically, she took from beauty bloggers to craft four of her pages, posted a few fauxpologies, and her fans started emailing hate mail and such to the people who outed her or stood against her. It's just an ugly mess.

BUT SHE STILL GETS ARCS GALORE FROM PUBLISHERS, INCLUDING A GODDAMN NOOK FROM HARPERCOLLINS.

Just saying.

Layce Gardner

According to her, people like me who write negative reviews are "bitchy, angry people who need to get laid." Mm-hm. Same story as usual. I'd ask for them to spice things up a little, but people eventually do that and everyone wishes they didn't.

MAY

Elle Lothlorien

 This author, when a negative review of one of her books is posted, likes to respond to them, which often resulted in the reviewers being pressured into changing their reviews or ratings to suit her. Not smart.

Jessica Park

Park, a friend of famous badly behaving author Jamie McGuire, decides it's a good idea to post a screencap of a Goodreads member's shelf on her book, which was so given thanks to Park's own tag-team behavior with McGuire on Amazon. She also comments on it. Not too bright.

 M.R. Mathias

When his thread about his books got moved to the small press/self-published section of the forums, Mathias was not a happy boy. Not at all. This resulted in a meltdown with him making many, many comments on a Goodreads list dedicated to badly behaving authors (but all of his comments are deleted now, woe) and many, many stupid tweets.

Laurell K. Hamilton

This is hardly even anything because LKH has done this so often. So often that she gets a page on the Fandom Wank Wiki just like Anne Rice does. What she does this time is rather typical of her: complaining about reviewers, assuming they're complaining because her character Anita Blake is having sex with multiple people (and not because her books might be going down down down in quality or something), etc. Barely worth paying attention to. It's almost funny!

 Melissa Douthit

She returns! This time, it's because she decided to air popular reviewer Wendy Darling's alleged personal information and twist around what happened during The Selection's debacle. Cuddlebuggery and Pocketful of Books have the most comprehensive screencaps/link collection on this whole sorry mess. Wendy herself made a post responding to all this, and it becomes clear how much the problem with The Selection has affected her.

This whole fiasco scared many of Wendy's friends--and people who fought with Douthit in general--into locking down their social media presence for a while. This may be the only event this year that had a personal effect on me; a supporter of Douthit's came to play with me, which resulted in a stress-related medical condition I'd just started recovering from to start up again the night before I graduated high school.

JUNE

Steven Nedelton

Because it summarizes this quite well, I'll borrow a comment of mine from elsewhere on this: Spamming people, calling someone who takes issues with the way you advertise yourself a communist/fascist, and then saying they must be on drugs? Uh, fuck no.  

L.B. Schulman

This was more of a maybe-drama; looking back, I've got no idea what happened here. A bunch of blank accounts attacked my friend Blythe's Goodreads review of League of Strays and there were suspicions the author had something to do with it. Schulman's comment on a blog post of Maggie Stiefvater's is a sign of something to come.

Jaq D. Hawkins

 Hawkins took exception to one review of her novel Dance of the Goblins and tried to get it taken down, saying she will otherwise sue the reviewer for slander and extreme copyright violation. What ensues is pretty damn silly and also kind of awful, but entertaining nonetheless.

JULY

Oh God, July. This was probably one of the worst months.

Heather White

The author had a very bad reaction to a negative review, as seen here and here. After fighting with Kara and Melissa, she deleted her account on Goodreads.

Caroll Bryant

A lot of these links have been deleted because it happened on Goodreads for the most part and the author was deleted from the site. He also deleted most of the relevant comments. This is going off memory and what other friends have said.

One of the more wild events of the year. Bryant posted about bloggers who received copies of his book for review and said they'd review it or interview him, but they never did so for their own reasons. This massive sense of entitlement he's got going on makes him want to post a list of those bloggers. Many people advise him on Goodreads that this is an awful idea, but he goes into a downward spiral. Links got deleted, unfortunately. At some point, he admits that he was once part of Stop the Goodreads Bullies, which I'll cover next. Considering how reviled STGRB is among reviewers, this is pretty much him giving himself a death sentence, but the links are once again lost thanks to deletions.

He does eventually post the list, which consists of six blogs/bloggers: In Between Reading And Writing, YA Infatuation, The Lit Bitch,YA-Aholic, A Cupcake and a Latte, and Nightlyreading. The first blog is run by a young woman that Bryant lied about his age to, sent fake pictures of himself to, and led on when he knew she had a crush on him and it wasn't going to work. She was underage at the time and Bryant recently made a post about him and that young woman on STGRB that twists things around and lies about what happened, according to a source who doesn't want to be named/linked to.

I highly suspect Wendy of the now-defunct review blog A Cupcake and a Latte quit blogging in part due to this, as she was one of the bloggers Bryant named. She shut down shortly after it happened, but she claimed she never approached him like he claimed she did. Also, despite his claims at this time that he was no longer part of STGRB, he is now regularly featured there and given a voice there.


Stop the Goodreads Bullies/STGRB

I don't remember when they popped up or how anyone found out about them, but they exploded onto the scene in late July. Starting with four bloggers/Goodreads members (Ridley, Kat Kennedy of Cuddlebuggery, The Holy Terror, and Lucy), they posted their alleged real names, locations, where they went at certain times, and details of their lives. Every other blogger had something to say about how disgusted they were with this site. It has long been suspected that infamous BBA Melissa Douthit is behind the site due to how the attacks on this site are so similar to how Douthit attacked Wendy Darling back in May. Some people have posted compelling proof for this theory--proof that makes some people sure she had something to do with it no matter what the site claims.

After they realized how much trouble they could get in for posting personal info the way they did, they took it down and said it never happened. Of course, I know better because I have screencaps of the original posts. I'd post them here, but I want to include the entire posts and my screencaps are too damn large. No matter where I upload them, the screencaps are too large and the text becomes blurred when you zoom in.

Someone recently told me I made their sidebar of Badly Behaving Goodreaders, but STRGB can kiss my ass and learn what bullying actually is. As I said to someone at some point, this is BOOK REVIEWING, not the God damn battle of good vs. evil for the fate of the world.

L.B. Schulman

Y'all remember her, right? Suspected of having something to do with other Goodreads members attacking a reviewer? Well, whether or not she did it, a number of readers put her on their do-not-read shelf because of this tweetin which she shows support for Stop the GR Bullies. A little ironic considering her book is about bullying and how repaying bullies in kind isn't the way to go. There was also an anonymous comment on STGRB at one point that sounded like it might be her.

Cassandra Duffy

Same story, different character: she thinks "anyone who posts a scathing rant review of a book without receiving a giant paycheck as compensation are just bitter ***** who should probably find a hobby that doesn’t involve tearing down artists who actually contribute something to the world."

The word censored out? Twats.

Donna White Glaser

One of many, many authors some readers put on their do-not-read lists of various names. Why? For supporting STGRB.

Victoria Foyt

I'd known about her novel Save the Pearls for months because it showed up on NetGalley a while back, but I paid it no mind because it sounded like a racist piece of shit. Once the right people discovered it and brought attention to it, things EXPLODED. Her Huffington Post articles came under scrutiny and racist statements like "Conceivably, if the book had not reached the African-American community of readers, if such a category still exists, perhaps there might be some backlash" made some people start foaming at the mouth. No matter how many times Foyt denies being racist, her actions and her book speak a lot louder than she does.

And did I forget to mention the blackface in promo videos for the novel? I did? Damn. It's unfortunately true.

AUGUST

Emily Giffin

Another big one solely because the author involved is pretty big. Basically, the author's husband called a reviewer who gave one of his wife's books one star a psycho. Giffin posted on Facebook about it, which could be seen as encouraging her husband and fans to keep attacking the reviewer. Full story and screencaps are here on Corey Ann's blog.


I heard through the grapevine that the reviewer in question only just found out about the drama recently because their Amazon account is connected to an email account they barely use.

Simone Elkeles

A review on Goodreads anyone can tell is just good fun and a parody upset the author and she called bully. She contacted the reviewer multiple times in private messages telling her to take it down because it's misrepresenting her and... well, bullying. Cue the deletion of her comments and many people being disgusted with the author.

SEPTEMBER

Pam van Hylckama

Before anyone gets confused, Pam did NOT behave badly. Rather, someone behaved badly toward her--to the tune of attacking her for rejecting their novel. 

Full story here, but one day, someone attacked Pam in her car and started slamming her head into the steering wheel when she rolled down the window to talk to him. Her dog bit him and the man ran off. Later, the police looked through her email and found threats from an author she rejected. Using the address listed in the query letter, police went to his house and found him with a bite mark from Pam's dog on him.

Receiving such things from rejected writers is apparently par for the course as an agent and this horrifies me. When I was querying a manuscript and someone sent me back a rejection, that was it. Done. I didn't email them again saying I hoped they died or begging them to think about it or any of that. Ugh. -shivers-

OCTOBER

Nothing worth reporting. Yay!


NOVEMBER

A.E. Rought

Not bad behavior per se, but she upset a lot of people when she called the idea of having a female as the main character a trope. A trope, of course, is usually defined as a cliche or an overused idea. What, having a main character be of the female persuasion the way 51% of the world is means it's a trope?

Anna Marie Moore

Not an author, but this one was big enough and closely enough related to books that it counts. The Book Smugglers (two of my absolute favorite bloggers to ever exist) recounted their tale of how Moore, a website designer, was paid to redesign their site back in June and still had not delivered anything but excuses up until the point they posted about it in November. That was when they saw she was accepting new projects on her site when they themselves hadn't seen any work done on their project. Her estimated time to complete their work when they hired her? Two weeks. THAT was a fail.

DECEMBER

Mia Castile

Same story as usual: saw a bad review, didn't like it, proceeded to whine about it on their blog. This bad review  is apparently the one she's talking about, seeing as it's by a fellow author who has always been known for speaking her mind on the books she reads.

Tiffany Reisz

FINALLY, Reisz lets her opinions fly on Twitter.


She later apologizes for what she said. Some people accept her apology, some people don't.  The jealousy thing and saying a lot of reviewers are failed writers really gets my goat. For more screencaps, read this review's comments.






God DAMN, typing all this out hurt my fingers. I'm never doing this again. (Then again, we all know how I can turn never into possibly and get all the way to yes at some point. See Beautiful Disaster for an example.)

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

My Best and Worst of 2012 and Most Coveted of 2013

Whee, end-of-year recap posts! I've got a second cooked up that's about a hundred times more fun because it recounts how wild this year has been in books and bookish drama, but this is the basic, slightly less offensive one that's about the books I read.

First comes the best books I've read in 2012 (not ranked, just listed):


Stolen by Lucy Christopher
  • There's just something so powerful about this book and its portrayal of Stockholm Syndrome. It hit me in so many of the right places that I couldn't not love it. The ending even made me cry!
Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley
  • Like most of my friend insist, there must be something in the Aussie water! The romance and tour of the city Ed and Lucy take, both location-wise and artwork-wise, is one of my favorites. I always said I'd get my own copy after I read an ARC of this fantastic novel and I did a few months ago.
Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
  • My introduction to this author and the book that made me fall in love with her. I'm totally going to marry her. Sexual orientations? Relationship statuses? Pfft, who cares about any of that? I hear wedding bells! But yeah, despite Parker being a generally terrible person, she was written so well that I kept reading about her.
This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
  • Got to read this one as an ARC thanks to the beautiful creature that is Amazon Vine! 
    Couldn't have come at a better time, seeing as I read it maybe a month or two after Cracked Up to Be. I ain't even into zombies, but the characters and how easily Summers tapped into their darker emotions really hit me hard. Why is her next novel so far away?!
Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers
  • This was my year of Courtney Summers, in case you didn't know. This Is Not a Test beats this one for best Summers book by a hair, but Regina's story and how she endured the bullying by her former friends hit me as hard as it did everyone else. I can't even with words for the moment. Just check out the review.
What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang
  • Dystpian novels rarely strike a chord with me, but Zhang did something right because hers did.
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
  • You've probably seen this on many end-of-year lists and it's for a very good reason.
Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard
  • Words for this = I can't even. There's something about Hubbard's books that strikes me speechless; I wasn't even able to put together a review for Wanderlove despite how much I loved it, and writing the review for Like Mandarin was a little like pulling out a tooth.
Reality Bites Back by Jennifer L. Pozner
  • Yeah, nonfiction. I know. This one gave me a lot to think about concerning both reality television and YA. Most of the points she makes can be applied to YA too, especially books like The Selection by Kiera Cass that have deep roots in reality TV. I thought about reading said novel and writing an article on it, but I lack the time and interest at the moment. Maybe one day.
The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress
  • This one was a recent read, but its whimsical feel and the girl power rocketed it up into my top ten for the year. AND THEN THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION.
~

And because I'm honest to a fault and refuse to keep anything bad I have to say to myself, here are the worst books I've read this year, narrowed down from the many stinkers I've read this year (listed, not ranked):

The Raie'Chaelia by Melissa Douthit
  • To say nothing of the author (that will come in my drama-recap post), this book was awful. Typos, lots of telling-not-showing, predictable plotting, and too many other issues I don't care to recount.
Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire
  • Slut-shaming, glorifying an abusive relationship, inconsistent characterization, and more are why this book is actually an ugly disaster. The only reason I'm not raging harder at this is because of the rainbow of ninety-one sticky notes I put in it. They make me calm.
Heaven by Alexandra Adornetto
  • Well, I can't say I expected anything different from her. She still made me mad by proclaiming through Gabriel that marriage is only between a man and a woman. That sentiment can put on some fiery red lipstick and kiss my ass.
Thoughtless by S.C. Stephens
  • Couldn't even finish it. Cheating is one of my big no-nos unless there are extenuating circumstances and Kiera does it like it's no big deal. Way too much melodramatic schmoop for me too handle.
Phantom by Laura DeLuca
  • A complete and utter desecration of The Phantom of the Opera, one of my favorite works of all time. I keep getting trolled over this book and called a book snob both to my face and behind my back, but screw it, it was bad.
Dinner with a Vampire by Abigail Gibbs
  • THE MAIN LOVE INTEREST ATTEMPTS TO RAPE HIS LOVE INTEREST BECAUSE SHE TOOK HIS CONDOMS. Nothing more really needs to be said. And he still gets the girl to fall in love with him. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Also, bundles and bundles of double standards and slut shaming. I am ashamed this was produced by someone my age.
Ditched by Robin Mellom
  • This should have been cute, but wow at all the slut-shaming. I couldn't finish it because it was borderline causing me pain to keep reading.
Eternal Starling by Angela Corbett
  • This one makes it because it really could have been good, but it chose to indulge in cliches instead of trying to be original and live up to its potential.
When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle
  • The slut-shaming strikes again! This take on Romeo and Juliet fell flat on its face and demonized Juliet when both in the play and in this book, Romeo/Rob is the real dickbag.
Lipstick Apology by Jennifer Jabaley
  • Seriously, slut-shaming is like a one-way ticket onto this list. Six of the books on here are guilty of it. This started out as your standard dead-parents book, but the main character's attitude and all the slut-shaming just about made me toss it out the window.
~

Finally, the books I'll sell Smurfs for: my most coveted of 2013! I already did this list for a Top Ten Tuesday thing, so I'll just link you to that. Sorry to be anticlimactic, ladies and gents. My hands hurt too much to retype it all.

My Most Coveted/Anticipated of 2013

Friday, October 12, 2012

Thoughtless by S.C. Stephens

Title: Thoughtless
Author: S.C. Stephens
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: November 6, 2012
Pages: 544 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: author website

Thoughtless (Thoughtless, #1)For almost two years now, Kiera's boyfriend, Denny, has been everything she's ever wanted: loving, tender and endlessly devoted to her. When they head off to a new city to start their lives together, Denny at his dream job and Kiera at a top-notch university, everything seems perfect. Then an unforeseen obligation forces the happy couple apart.

Feeling lonely, confused, and in need of comfort, Kiera turns to an unexpected source – a local rock star named Kellan Kyle. At first, he's purely a friend that she can lean on, but as her loneliness grows, so does their relationship. And then one night everything changes...and none of them will ever be the same.


Review:


The only good I got out of reading Thoughtless is that I now have the ability to horrify people with how a beer bottle was shoved in a woman's vagina before page 30.
"...this girl, damn, she had the best rack I've ever seen." The bassist paused to make a crude gesture with his hands, as if the guys would need that statement clarified. "And the shortest skirt too. Everybody around us was completely wasted, so I ducked under the table and shoved that skirt as high as it would go. Then I grabbed my beer bottle and stuck--" (ARC p. 28)
I think it's clear where he was going. Anyone else want to consider the possibility that he did this without the woman's consent or when she was too drunk to give consent? Hello there, rape. Besides, everyone knows proper etiquette is to wait at least 50 pages before inflicting that kind of mental scarring on a reader. Common courtesy and all that. I thought this was New Adult, not adult erotica!

To sum up Thoughtless in a nutshell: It is 544 pages of lifeless, badly written, plotless schmoop dripping with enough melodrama to kill an elephant. I tried so hard to look at this the way fans of the novel and Simon & Schuster (whose imprint Gallery Books picked up this trilogy after the first two books were self-published) did, but the appeal is not there. This novel should not have seen the light of day, much less been given a publishing deal.

You know that character who is always like, "Oh my gosh, why is this super-hot guy paying attention to me? I'm so plain, even though there are at least four guys with some level of interest in me and people are constantly grabbing my butt!" That's Kiera.

She's also the blushing virgin sans the virginity. I can understand the quoted story above making her blush, but the simple word "penis" after she's been having sex with her boyfriend of two years for a good while? It's ridiculous! Her immaturity, shown by such actions, become more obvious when considering she changed schools solely to move to Seattle with her boyfriend (and has no problem admitting it), being a selfish child by demanding Kellan do this or that even though they're not together and she's cheating on her boyfriend all the time with him, and so much more that I can't recount it all without losing my temper again.

Kellan and Kiera disgust me and I would like to hurt them both. End of story. Infidelity is one of my huge no-nos and that made it impossible to root for them the way I was supposed to. Their scenes, rather than getting me hot or making me like them like they're supposed to, made me reach for my trash can and force me to take a break in order to preserve my sanity. Other people may be able to get around the infidelity, but I can't. I have no interest in reading about these two selfish, childish people and all their drama as they hurt their best friend (Kellan) and boyfriend (Kiera) with their actions. This novel has no plot unless this counts and these two characters are not interesting or tolerable enough to carry the entire book.

Honestly, they are so bad that I could not finish reading this novel. I read over 300 pages of the disgusting schmoop, flipped to the last chapter, and promptly felt nauseated again as a happily-ever-after was confirmed. My two reasons for giving it a rating and not just calling it a DNF:

1) I've read over half the novel and that is my cut-off for ratings. I don't rate if I read less than half, but I do if I read more than half.

2) I missed absolutely nothing by skipping 200 or so pages to get to the end. To me, that's the equivalent of reading the entire book in misery.

If a girl is interested in Kellan, she is written as an insipid (Kiera's word from page 10 of the ARC, not mine) mess who can't stop herself from drooling over him. Some of them are drunken and.or ugly too, just to add to it. The only females in the story who aren't badly portrayed are Kiera's sister (who starts out as the same drooling-over-Kellan mess and stays that way for a while) and women who are uninterested in Kellan, such as Kiera's co-worker Jenny.

I saw recently where an author turned in a 24k novella and the 55 ellipses she used total were considered too many. In a single fifteen-page chapter, Thoughtless used 74 ellipses, only 11 of which were used to transition flashbacks. This novel doubtlessly has nothing on Fifty Shades of Gray, the ultimate ellipses abuser, but this novel used them far too often. That one chapter was the only one in which I had the patience to count, but they are everywhere in this novel. Don't abuse the ellipses, people! Just don't!

That's just one example of lazy writing, and there are many more, but a worse crime with the writing: a lack of passion. Ben Stein's monotone voice narrated this in my head because there is absolutely no passion in Kiera's voice. Even when she's getting it on with Kellan or her boyfriend, it seems like she's just going through the motions while she narrates. That does not make for good, interesting reading. There are highlights everywhere in my e-galley of passages that were especially badly written, horrifying, or tasteless.

In addition to badly written, it's badly researched. When Denny has to fly to Tuscon for his job early in the novel, Kiera and Kellan somehow stay with him right up until he boards the flight. Uh, no. That's not how it works. It's well-known now that in major airports across the United States, no civilians are allowed to go any further than the entrance to security without a plane ticket. When people without tickets make it past security, it makes the national news and the TSA gets ripped a new one.

The stated target range of New Adult novels is ages 14-35. Are you kidding me? No fourteen-year-old should be reading this book! The descriptions of sex in this novel are on the same level as the kind I've seen in urban fantasy novels aimed at adults. I'm starting to wonder if this genre is by and large and excuse for people to aim sex at teenagers without someone getting up in arms about it. Sex in a YA novel? Oh my gosh, ban that book! The children must not see it! Sex in New Adult? No one cares. -rolls eyes-

I'm the ideal target audience for this book and I've got an iron stomach for all things terrible and bookish, but even I can't deal with Thoughtless. If it turns out Easy was an exception and the average New Adult novel is like Thoughtless, I'm jumping ship.

0 stars!


What am I reading next?: Rockoholic by C.J. Skuse

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Incarnation by Emma Cornwall

Title: Incarnation
Author: Emma Cornwall
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: September 18, 2012
Pages: 352 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Incarnation
Lucy Weston tracks down the novelist Bram Stroker in her search to reveal the dark force who made her a vampire—and regain her humanity in the process.

In the steampunk world of Victorian London, Lucy Weston, a character in Dracula, seeks out Bram Stoker to discover why he deliberately lied about her in his popular novel. With Stoker’s reluctant help, she tracks the creature who transformed her from the sensual underworld where humans vie to become vampires to a hidden cell beneath a temple to madness and finally into the glittering Crystal Palace where death reigns supreme.

Haunted by fragmentary memories of her lost life and love, Lucy battles her thirst for blood as she struggles to stop a catastrophic war that will doom vampires and humans alike. Ultimately, she makes a choice that illuminates for her—and for us—the true nature of what it means to be human.
 

Review:


Though I primarily read young adult novels, I'm no stranger to adult novels and enjoy them just as much. It's nice to have an occasional break from the teenage dramatics inherent to many YA novels, you know? As big a Dracula/vampire fan as I am (but I was not a fan of the cover the edition of Dracula I had as a child possessed; I wish I had a picture of it to show off, but I don't), I expected Incarnation and its highly original idea to draw me in and never let go, but there was something off about everything.

Cornwall's idea is fantastic and I love everything about it. The idea of Dracula being a piece of propaganda twisting and concealing the truth of vampires and the fate of Lucy Westenra (her real name being Lucy Weston) was what grabbed my attention in the first place and the way the author expanded on it kept me reading. The expansions made throughout the novel to include the Protectors, who safeguard humans from vampires, Slayers born every thousand years to cull the vampire population, and the precarious balance humans and vampires have in Victorian England aren't necessarily new, but the way in which Cornwall employs and describes them makes them feel like something of their own. Moderately fine pacing kept the story moving and unraveled the plots each side was planning in order to defeat the other.

What feels so off about the novel is that I didn't have any emotional investment and there doesn't seem to be much passion in the novel. I respond to a passionately written novel by diving headfirst into it and caring about what happens to each and every character like they're my family, but there was no such connection to Incarnation. Lucy is sympathetic as she struggles with her nature and the differences that set her apart from other vampires, but she didn't truly earn sympathy from me; I just knew that was how I was supposed to feel. The steampunk element seems like more of an afterthought than anything--which I didn't mind, as someone who doesn't care much for it, but readers coming in expecting more steampunk will be disappointed.

The way the novel leaves off, there is easily room for a sequel, though I don't know if there will be one. My Googling skills haven't turned up anything yet, and if there were a sequel, I'm not sure whether I'd read it or not. Fellow Dracula and vampire fans looking for a new twist on a familiar story will enjoy Incarnation and perhaps they will respond to it better than I did.

3 stars!


What am I reading next?: Fall for Anything by Courtney Summers

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody

200 followers! Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! All of you are awesome and perfect and-- -devolves into screaming/jumping up and down- It's taken me almost two years to get to this point, but I don't care because I'm just glad you're here and care what I have to say. Thank you!

Title: Obernewtyn
Author: Isobelle Carmody
Publisher: Random House Children's Book
Release Date: December 9, 2008
Pages: 244 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

Obernewtyn (The Obernewtyn Chronicles, #1)In a world struggling back from the brink of apocalypse, life is harsh. And for Elspeth Gordie, it is also dangerous. That's because Elspeth has a secret: she is a Misfit, born with mysterious mental abilities that she must keep hidden under threat of death. And her worries only multiply when she is exiled to the mountain compound known as Obernewtyn, where—for all her talents—Elspeth may finally and truly be out of her depth. Then she learns she’s not the only one concealing secrets at Obernewtyn.

Review:


Isobelle Carmody's standalone novel Alyzon Whitestarr was one of the first books I reviewed when I started this blog nearly two years ago (almost two years now!) and since then, I've been interested in the series that made her so famous in Australia: the Obernewtyn Chronicles. This post-apocalyptic fantasy novel is a serious departure from what I'm used to and I enjoyed it, though the novel has its share of problems. It's difficult to put my problems into words for this one, but I'll try.

The novel's vivid worldbuilding kept me reading when I needed to pack and do other things, though I admittedly started skimming at the boring points. Elspeth came across as a relatable character to me and what she went through in various orphanages a a child believably shaped who she is in this novel. I got quite a bit of heart from the supporting characters as well, but I did expect a little more from them. It's understandable we didn't get to know them better, in a way; the iron fist of Obernewtyn's Master(s) kept them from being more open and letting both Elspeth and readers in. They're likely to get more characterization in future books.

Carmody began the novel when she was fourteen and it was first published in 1987, when she was in her late twenties, but there are places where stilted writing/dialogue and rough pacing give away how young she was when she began. As I said previously, I started skimming when things got boring and during some of the descriptions. Obernewtyn is short and that's exactly why I read this next over something else, but that also gives it two choices: cram a lot into a little book or allow a proportionately small amount of material into said little book. It went with the latter.

I have a feeling Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles is a series that is better when considered as a whole rather than as individual books, much like LJ Smith's books. I think I'll continue on with this series to see how the author improves and how the more subtle elements and forgotten plot threads of Obernewtyn will come back later (research on this series has taught me that everything is important and can come back books later to save the day), but I can't do it right now. Maybe one day.

3 stars!


What am I reading next?: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Snow White Blood Red by Cameron Jace

Title: Snow White Blood Red
Author: Cameron Jace
Publisher: Cameron Jace
Release Date: May 29, 2012
Pages: ebook exclusive
How I Got the Book: Picked it up for free as an Amazon deal.
Purchase: Amazon
Promotional Materials and More: author website

What if all you knew about fairy tales was wrong?

Book description of Snow White Blood Red: A Grimm Diaries Prequel as told by the Snow White Queen:

I have always wondered why you never asked about my name. Was I so superficial to you? So stereotypical and mundane? Why did you treat me as if I were just the monster of the week? You know what I think? You never had the time to really hate me. You wanted to hate me, long before you even met me. You wanted to scrape my existence and avenge your childhood princess by laying all blame on me. What if they didn’t call me the Evil Queen, what if I told you the real story from my point of view instead of hers, would you ever think of me as an angel? Could I ever make you care? I know that deep inside of you, you adore me,but you’re just scared, afraid to admit how much you love the Snow White Queen.

This Grimm Diaries Prequels are a number of short books in the form of epistolary diary entries. The diaries are more of teasers for the upcoming series: The Grimm Diaries, allowing you to get a glimpse of what to expect of the series.


Review:


After discovering Bargain eBook Hunter about a month ago, I've picked up numerous free YA ebooks, and Snow White Blood Red (along with the next two prequels, Ashes to Ashes and Cinder to Cinder and Beauty Never Dies) was one of my finds a few days ago when it was still free. Numerous friends of mine have Snow White Sorrow, the first book of the Grimm Diaries series, on their to-read list, but if the quality of the novel is anything like the quality of this prequel, I certainly won't be reading it when it comes out.

The idea behind this prequel is a good one: the Evil Queen from Snow White setting the record straight after the Brothers Grimm twisted the story in order to lock immortals like Snow White, the Queen, and other fairytale people away in the Dreamworld they created. The Queen's personality is a little bland, but her narrative voice--when it's being consistent, that is--works well and the little bit of ego she shows in one passage impressed me.

If only awkward phrasing, grammar flubs, basic errors in dialogue formatting, and strange figurative language didn't mess it up. The version I read is apparently improved from a previous version of Snow White Blood Red that Jace published, but there are still plenty of errors, like this:

It [the snow] lay grisly over the contour-lined land like a dead girl’s white coat made of the fur of dead polar bears, like a white wavy carpet that was in no way magical. The curves of the land made the snow look like there was a beautiful gigantic dead girl buried underneath it.

and this:

Her sucking was ticklish. After all, her teeth hadn’t grown yet so it was a funny feeling that I felt.

This was not ready to be published yet. Not by a long shot.

The prequel actually seems to contradict itself. In the one moment she deviates from her formal, pleading tone, the Queen says "I knew my daughter would grow up to be a kick-ass girl one day," the pithy excuse she offers is that she's been around since 1812 and seen everyone from the Brothers Grimm to Lady Gaga, so of course her language would change. But then it's explicitly stated that the Sleeping Death all the immortals are cursed with only allow the immortals to be awake and out of the Dreamworld they're trapped in for a brief period of time every one-hundred years. If this is supposed to make sense because the Queen is still able to see what is going on in the "real" world while under the Sleeping Death's curse, it's terribly explained.

Since I already have the next two prequels, I'll be reading them too. I've got my fingers crossed that they will be better than Snow White Blood Red and won't waste their potential.

1 star!


What am I reading next?: Ashes to Ashes and Cinder to Cinder by Cameron Jace

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Waking Storms by Sarah Porter

Title: Waking Storms
Author: Sarah Porter
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Release Date: July 3, 2012
Pages: 400 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC through Amazon Vine
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

After parting ways with her troubled mermaid tribe, Luce just wants to live peacefully on her own. But her tranquility doesn't last long: she receives news that the tribe is on the verge of collapse and desperately needs her leadership. Anais, the tribe's cruel queen, wants Luce dead. Dorian, the boy Luce broke mermaid law to save, is determined to make her pay for her part in the murder of his family. And while the mermaids cling to the idea that humans never suspect their existence, there are suddenly ominous signs to the contrary.

But when Luce and Dorian meet, they start to wonder if love can overpower the hatred they know they should feel for each other. Can Luce fulfill her rigtful role as queen of the mermaids without sacrificing her forbidden romance with Dorian?

Full of miraculous reunions and heart-pounding rescues, this haunting second installment in the Lost Voices trilogy finds Luce eager to attempt reconcilation with humans--as long as war doesn't break out first.

Review:


Though the mention of forbidden romance in Waking Storms left me wary and drove me batty for nearly half the book, I'm surprised at how much I liked this book. This may turn into a pattern with this series; the quality of the first book surprised me too. Luce could use some stronger characterization so I actually had something to say about her, but you know what? Whether or not she gets a personality, I'll keep reading. The expansions Porter makes to her universe are enticing enough to make me not care.

The first hundred pages were not very good to me. We spend time in the head of Dorian, the human Luce saved the life of at the end of Lost Voices, and it's made very clear he's in pain after the death of his family in the mermaid-caused sinking of the Dear Melissa. When he's not thinking about them, he's tortured by thoughts of Luce. So why were he and Luce making out by page sixty-two and pretty much declaring their love soon after? No! No! Noooo! After that hundred pages, the problems in their relationship started to come out. This is not meant to be true love. Whew! Close call.

So while Dorian and Luce's insta-love romance drove me batty, I started to see Romeo and Juliet parallels in it. No, not like that! If I had to say, I think Porter understands what the often-misinterpreted play is really about. Like Romeo and Juliet, Dorian and Luce are young and stupid (Dorian is fifteen, Luce fourteen). They fall in love very quickly for little good reason, and it seems their relationship will negatively affect themselves and others if it ends badly--and all signs say it will end badly. Even if it does work out, others will be hurt because of them. Do these parallels follow through? I suggest reading the novel yourself to find out, but I will say I was somewhat happy and somewhat wary about where the novel left the two. Kind of like how I felt at the end of Lost Voices.

The mix-up of sirens and mermaids grates on me more in this book than it did in the first (sirens sank boats/killed people by singing but they didn't live in the water; mermaids lived in the water and killed by charming/tricking sailors into the water), but I'm willing to let go of that. The history of the two being combined is too extensive for any complaints to mean much. Dorian's character isn't fleshed out as much as I wish it was, but he's rather endearing. Focusing on a mythical, dreamlike mermaid like Luce to forget about the pain of his parents seemed like a way he might try to cope due to his age and the circumstances. There isn't much I can say about Luce herself, unfortunately.

The last book showed no signs that humans knew mermaids existed, but over the course of Waking Storms, we discover that not only do some humans know about mermaids, but they're actively trying to prove they exist in order to eliminate them. A scene where a room full of FBI agents and goverment higher-ups listen to a thirty-second snippet of the mermaid death song was one of the strongest of the novel! Subtle and creepy. Just the way I like it!

The Twice Lost, the final book in the Lost Voices trilogy, doesn't come out for another year, but I'm looking forward to it. Yet another pattern with the series: the ending leaving me wary of the next novel. But since Waking Storms did better than I thought it would, why can't the third book pull off the same trick?

4 stars!


What am I reading next?: So Close to You by Rachel Carter

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Dark Companion by Marta Acosta

Title: Dark Companion
Author: Marta Acosta
Publisher: Tor Teen
Release Date: July 3, 2012
Pages: 368 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC received through Amazon Vine.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: author website

Orphaned at the age of six, Jane Williams has grown up in a series of foster homes, learning to survive in the shadows of life. Through hard work and determination, she manages to win a scholarship to the exclusive Birch Grove Academy. There, for the first time, Jane finds herself accepted by a group of friends. She even starts tutoring the headmistress’s gorgeous son, Lucien. Things seem too good to be true. 

They are.

The more she learns about Birch Grove’s recent past, the more Jane comes to suspect that there is something sinister going on. Why did the wife of a popular teacher kill herself? What happened to the former scholarship student, whose place Jane took? Why does Lucien’s brother, Jack, seem to dislike her so much?

As Jane begins to piece together the answers to the puzzle, she must find out why she was brought to Birch Grove—and what she would risk to stay there…


Review:


The first time I tried to get a copy of this novel after I saw someone give it a lot of praise, I was told no. I was sad and meant to ask for it again, but I got a copy through another avenue and all was well. Why do I keep forgetting that publishers usually tell me no for books I'm not going to like very much? Sometimes, it's like they're psychic and I'm the skeptic who refuses to listen to them. The praise for Dark Companion is well-earned, but I just wasn't into it.

Acosta's novel is well-written for the most part, if a teensy bit overwritten in the sense that there were too many unnecessary scenes. The lush descriptions of Birch Grove Academy, the birch groves surrounding the school that give it its name, and the air of mystery around everything really brings the Gothic atmosphere to life. Jane is fairly well-written and though I didn't always like her, I very rarely tired of reading about her.

Mary Violet, one of Jane's new friends, is absolutely adorable. She's an undeniable stock character (specifically, she's the plump best friend who drops the one-liners and acts as comic relief), but she was so cute that I will temporarily stop caring that Dark Companion had to fall back on such a trope. Jack is another high point among the cast and he's less of a stock character, thank goodness. I could reread the scenes where Jack and Jane verbally spar over and over again! It was kind of cute, the way he always insisted she had to be a Halfling or a magical woodland creature, though that made him easy to see through. Why Jane didn't get it is beyond me.

Then around the halfpoint of the novel, gears shift completely. Anyone looking for a paranormal twist will be sadly disappointed because there is nothing paranormal about the novel. A scientific explanation for what is going on is offered in a way that befits the novel, but the shift in tone, plot, and Jane's mindset after this point is where Dark Companion starts losing me. The way Jane justified everything with Lucky... It's horrible. Absolutely horrible.

What really got me was how Jane's actions didn't seem to mesh with her characterization half the time. She strongly disapproves of her friend Wilde's situation, where her boyfriend/pimp provides everything for her and stays with her as long as she keeps up her appointments. The latter makes me wonder why Jane spent most of the book consenting to a situation that parallels Wilde's significantly. A provider gives her everything she could want in exchange for her performing a not-so-little service for them whenever they ask her to--hm...

Jane's rough upbringing must also be taken into account and it's understandable that it leaves her with a desire to be loved. The way I saw it, she's been looking after herself her entire life and that comes with being able to pick what might pose a threat to her. It struck me as wrong that after all the crap she dealt with growing up, she was willing to take all the crap Lucian threw at her. Most of the creepy things he says? Right over her head. The way he treats her like dirt? Same thing. The severe co-dependency they had going on made me sick and I wanted to put down the book over it. The resolution on that front made me very happy, but other readers may not be able to swim through all the fuckery to the ending they beg for.

The ending was a neat wrap-up of the novel--almost too neat. Resolution with Lucky comes out of nowhere (or maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I swear I saw no hint of it anywhere) and little details made me unsure of whether or not there would be a sequel. Everything seems resolved and happily-ever-afterish, but then it's said the antagonist was never found. We all know what it means when the antagonist isn't found after the climactic battle.

I can see Acosta's novel finding many fans, but I don't feel I'm one of them. If you're not into blood play (and I most definitely am not, so those scenes grossed me out), you might not want to read this. I'm still not completely sure how I feel about this very strange novel, but I have put my feelings into words as well as I could manage.

3 stars!



What am I reading next?: Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan

Title: Team Human
Author: Justina Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: July 3, 2012
Pages: 344 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC received through a swap with a friend.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon; Barnes & Noble; Book Depository

Just because Mel lives in New Whitby, a city founded by vampires, doesn't mean she knows any of the blood-drinking undead personally. They stay in their part of town; she says in hers. Until the day a vampire shows up at her high school. Worse yet, her best friend, Cathy, seems to be falling in love with him. It's up to Mel to save Cathy from a mistake she might regret for all eternity!

On top of trying to help Cathy (whether she wants it or not), Mel is investigating a mysterious disappearance for another friend and discovering the attractions of a certain vampire wannabe. Combine all this with a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and touching.

Acclaimed authors Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan team up to create a witty and poignant story of cool vampires, warm friendships, and the changes that test the bonds of love.

Review:


You know how you sometimes think, when reading a vampire book "Man, this girl has no brains/has a terrible best friend. She needs someone to talk some sense into her/be a better friend!"? Mel wants to be that sensible best friend advising her lovestruck friend to take it slow with the vampire. How successful she is at being the sensible best friend and main character in Team Human is up in the air. For multiple reasons, this is one of the toughest reviews I've ever had to write.

As you might expect, the characters sometimes feel like improved versions of more famous characters in vampire lit. Cathy is our typical mature, bookish girl who rushes into a relationship with a vampire, but she knows exactly what she is getting into. She weighs the pros and cons of becoming a vampire, buries herself in books about transitioning, and isn't letting anyone, including her vampire boyfriend or her best friend, tell her what to think or do. Mel is the best friend we've been begging girls like Cathy to get, though she gets pushy and prejudiced sometimes. (But I love her name--Mellifluous. Heehee!)

I've read novels from both Larbalestier and Brennan before this and while they blended their individual styles well, there were a few moments where I felt like I knew who had written that specific line or scene. A line about Francis having a stake where the sun don't shine is one I'm almost certain is Brennan's. While it was a funny novel and a solid parody of the "girl meets vampire" trope, it didn't quite make the leap to hilarious. I would call it more of a dramedy than a parody, though. Book gets seriously serious toward the end.

One of my problems with the novel is that things from it tended to resemble a few things in real life that I'm unsettled by. Some of Mel's statements about human-vampire relations and how the two groups should be kept apart strongly reminded me of how segregationists in the U.S. during the '50s and '60s spoke. How thorough the process of informing a human about the risks and consequences of transitioning (showing them zombies, three required sessions with a counselor, parental permission required if underage) very slightly reminded me of the million hurdles women have to go through to get an abortion in certain places. But--I can't stress this strongly enough--the resemblance to abortion hurdles is very slight because aborting a fetus and changing species are two entirely different things.

I see bits and pieces of why I love both authors in this book. Humor I can see Brennan coming up with, Larbalestier's own brand of quips, and the gifts they both have in writing relationships between characters are all there. All the central characters are well-rounded too, so why, for some reason I can't figure out, couldn't I get fully immersed with the novel? Maybe it was the mystery element that took over the story halfway through. The only thing that impressed me about it was the aftermath of it. I tried so hard to love it, but you can't force bookish love.

After having so much trouble investing myself in the novel and finding things to love about it, I'm not sure I'll be back for its sequel. Vampire fans will almost certainly love it, and others who want to see the "girl meets vampire" scenario poked fun at by two talented YA authors will want to check Team Human out. I'm sad to say this is a bit of a disappointment for me.

3 stars!


What am I reading next?: Forgotten by Cat Patrick

Friday, June 22, 2012

A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink

Title: A Temptation of Angels
Author: Michelle Zink
Publisher: Dial Book for Young Readers
Release Date: March 20, 2012
Pages: 435 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

Even angels make mistakes in this page-turning epic romance.

When her parents are murdered before her eyes, sixteen-year-old Helen Cartwright finds herself launched into an underground London where a mysterious organization called the Dictata controls the balance of good and evil. Helen learns that she is one of three remaining angelic descendants charged with protecting the world's past, present, and future. Unbeknownst to her, she has been trained her whole life to accept this responsibility. Now, as she finds herself torn between the angelic brothers protecting her and the devastatingly handsome childhood friend who wants to destroy her, she must prepare to be brave, to be hunted, and above all to be strong, because temptation will be hard to resist, even for an angel.

Michelle Zink masterfully weaves historical fantasy with paranormal romance to create a gripping tale of love and betrayal.


Review:


New rule: I will immediately say no to any novels with a mention of a love triangle in the jacket copy from this day forth. The only way I shall reconsider a novel is if trusted friends heap praise upon it (which is what pushed me to read the magnificent Unearthly by Cynthia Hand despite love triangle presence in the jacket copy) or if I've already started the series and may as well finish it. Why am I making this rule now? The misses far outnumber the hits and after coming off one novel with an irritating love triangle, rebounding with A Temptation of Angels was not a good idea. A lack of tension, stock characters, and a heroine whose split affections annoyed me sunk a promising novel.

Zink's writing style has a Dramatic flair to it, one I enjoyed and loved no matter how much the content of the story annoyed me. It was wordier than most prose, but it was just enough to give it a deliciously formal feel. It it had been much more, I would have called it purple and become more irritated than I already was.

The world of Keepers, descendants of the original angels assigned to guard Earth, and the Legion (demons and such; Lucifer leads them) was of great interest to me and I was sad to see it wasn't expanded on very much. The way Keepers were trained as children for their lifelong duty with games like Find the Way Out and other such little things that made sense once they knew the truth impressed me. If I had to pick something out, I'd say that was the best detail of the novel.

For all the good ideas and Dramatic prose A Temptation of Angels has to offer, there isn't much else I like about it. The characters are flat and uninteresting, stock at best; I couldn't have cared less if everyone died during the climactic scene. On that topic, with thirty pages left in the novel and the book entrenched in its climactic scene, I found myself unable to care about anything. I could have put the book down and never picked it up again and I wouldn't have had one problem with leaving it unfinished so close to the end. Uneven pacing had me hooked for the first one-hundred pages of the novel, but the next two-hundred or so bored me before it got back on track.

As I'm sure you figured out if you read my personal rule above, I don't like love triangles. I like them even less when one of the love interests has wronged the heroine pretty badly (like, say, giving the order to have her parents killed by burning to death in their home) and she falls in love with him anyway. I'm sorry, but... You know what? I'm not sorry. That disgusts me on a pretty deep level. "He killed my parents, but I'm going to fall in love with him!" Really? It reminds me of a series by another author where one of the heroine's love interests was a guy who kidnapped and tortured her twice. Ick ick ick!

And on another note, one of my greater pet peeves in a novel? When an author gives a character a Russian last name such as Baranova but does not follow the system that comes with Russian surnames, which makes the spelling change with a person's gender. A male in that family would be a Baranov; a female in that family would be a Baranova. Andrei and Raum Baranova are not female, so their surnames should be Baranov.

So yeah, I'm going to start following my new personal rule. Like, right now. Right? (Oh please, let me follow the rule this time unlike the last time I instituted it! I don't want to keep putting myself through the pain!)

2 stars!


What am I reading next?: When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Eternal Starling by Angela Corbett

Title: Eternal Starling
Author: Angela Corbett
Publisher: Pendrell Publishing
Release Date: December 6, 2011
Pages: 320 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

A love so strong, even eternity can’t separate them.

Evie Starling has lived a relatively uneventful life hanging out with friends, gossiping about boys, and driving her 1966 Mustang. All of that changes when she moves to Gunnison, Colorado, to start college and meets two mysterious men.

For centuries, Alex Night and Emil Stone have yearned for Evie—but they each have their own reasons for wanting to be with her. When both men claim to be her soul mate and tell her about an unbelievable past, Evie learns that she’s not the person she thought she was. Soon, Evie finds herself in the middle of an age-old battle between the Amaranthine Society—the soul protectors, and the Daevos Resistance—the soul destroyers. With a past she doesn’t understand, and a future rife with danger, Evie has to decide who she can trust. But Alex and Emil aren’t the only ones who want Evie, and her soul is about to become the rope in an eternal tug-of-war.


Review:


"Alex had just met me. Why would he care if I went careening off a cliff?" -Eternal Starling, 3% mark on my Kindle

That was a warning. After all, if Evie thinks there is something wrong with another having the common decency to not want a person to go careening off a cliff, there may be something wrong with her. Did I listen to that warning? Not for a second, and did I ever pay for it! My violent dislike of love triangles aside, I thought Eternal Starling was going to be a good book, but its half-awesome, half-infuriating heroine, unlikable love interests, badly done love triangle, and slow-moving plot killed it for me.

Half the time, I liked Evie. She took little to no bull from her boyfriends and she had so much backbone that I wanted to ask her to donate some of it to YA heroines in need. If only we could get the truly fantastic girls to share the wealth, YA would be a better genre for all! But I'm derailing myself. The other half of the time, I could not stand her. In addition to the quote at the beginning of the review, she lets her hormones control her brain--and she admits to it. It does not make me like her any more when she admits to it. It just makes me think she's even dumber.

Let's say it together: reincarnation does not excuse insta-love even if they knew each other in a past life. It is not an excuse to skip over development either. Here, we get not one, but two cases of insta-love, and I wondered for a minute if Anthony Sullivan and his pitchman ways had anything to do with this book. This story is driven by the love triangle (after all, most of what you see in the jacket copy is only just getting hinted at around the halfway mark) and giving it no development is a death sentence. Why does Evie have two soul mates when people are only supposed to have one? Hell if I know and hell if the book has an answer.

Both of her love interests can go jump in a pit of vipers. Alex constantly criticizes Evie's independent spirit, which led to me literally shouting expletives at my Kindle, and he always found a way to rub me wrong. Emil was not as offensive to the senses, but his mushy, annoying attitude got on my nerves. Some of the things he said to her and the way he kept just as much from Evie as Alex did is what sentences him to the pit. I get more excited watching my two inside cats attack than reading about Emil and Alex fighting over Evie. (And really, my cats are hardly fighting; the kitten jumps on our overweight cat and the two run around the house hissing at one another.)

My main reason for hating them both? When Evie uses her backbone to stand up to her, they shut her down almost every time. What the hell?! I love backbones, but when they are chained down by other people like Evie's is constantly, it's almost preferable to have a spineless heroine! Between seeing a heroine rarely stand up for herself and then seeing one stand up for herself but be told to sit back down and shut up, I can't decide which one I dislike more.

When the plot finally steps in, the greater antagonist's motives are poorly explained. I get why the Amaranthine Society tries to help soul mates, but what does the Daevos Resistance get out of breaking them up? The explanation the book offered (they're evil and building an army) was poor. They're never explored any deeper than "they're evil" and the flat picture it paints takes away a lot of the tension. I did like the idea of the two groups, but they're so shallowly covered that they aren't much good. The specific antagonist, a  Daevos Clan, isn't much better.

And I suppose this teaches me not to listen to one particular book blogger. They may be popular and many people may love them (to be fair, this blogger really is a sweet person), but their reviews never match up with my tastes and the books they tend to love the most are the ones I hate the most. Remember, everyone: make sure the people you rely on for book reviews have tastes that match yours in some way. Otherwise, you end up like me, buying books you hate because someone whose tastes are unlike yours said it was awesome.

1 star!


What am I reading next?: A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink

Friday, June 15, 2012

Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma

Make sure to check out this novel as Fade Out, newly updated and marketed as a YA novel!

Title: Dani Noir
Author: Nova Ren Suma
Publisher: Aladdin
Release Date: September 22, 2009
Pages: 272 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

If this were a movie, you'd open to the first page of this book and be transported to a whole other world. Everything would be in black and white, except maybe for the girl in pink polka-dot tights, and this really great music would start to swell in the background. All of a sudden, you wouldn't be able to help it--you'd be a part of the story, you'd be totally sucked in. You'd be in this place, filled with big lies, mysterious secrets, and a tween girl turned sleuth....

Zoom in on thirteen-year-old Dani Callanzano. It's the summer before eighth grade, and Dani is stuck in her nothing-ever-happens town with only her favorite noir mysteries at the Little Art movie theater to keep her company.

But one day, a real-life mystery begins to unravel--at the Little Art! And it all has something to do with a girl in polka-dot tights.... Armed with a vivid imagination, a flair for the dramatic, and her knowledge of all things Rita Hayworth, Dani sets out to solve the mystery, and she learns more about herself than she ever thought she could


Review:


Typically, middle-grade isn't my genre. It never has been; even when I was a tween, I skipped right over middle-grade books and went straight to YA. About a week ago, I went to the bookstore with the intent to buy Fade Out, which is Dani Noir updated and marketed as YA, but when the bookstore had no copies of Fade Out in stock but had multiple copies of Dani Noir on clearance priced at $3.97... Well, I left with Dani. Though the novel lacked the delicious creepiness that made me love the author's second novel Imaginary Girls, Dani Noir was fun in its own right and a great coming of age story.

Dani was a such a witty narrator and a great character too. Her problems and emotions felt so real, and I wished I could do away with all the pain she felt concerning her father cheating on her mother, leaving, and then deciding to marry the other woman. Dani wasn't perfect (she was extraodinarily selfish and I was happy to see her get called out for it), but she was someone I wanted to read about.The movie motif was a great choice because of how it illustrates Dani's dissatisfaction with real life. History has already shown people escape to the movies during tough times.

Though the novel is a bit of a mystery (who is the girl in the polka-dot tights? Is Jackson cheating on Elissa with her?), it's very easily solved and not that impressive. Then again, the novel isn't really about the mystery of the girl; it's about Dani. On a side note, it was a little strange reading about the love triangle through Dani's eyes. Because of my love of YA, I've gotten used to seeing love triangles where the narrator is one of the angles as the focus. In Dani Noir, it was like seeing the YA triangle through the younger friend/sibling of someone who is part of the triangle.

Not that I expected anything less than a great novel from one of my favorite authors. It's simpler than Imaginary Girls, but it's much easier to relate to and it's not quite as out-there. This makes waiting for the author's next novel, 17 and Gone, even more painful. Why does spring 2013 have to be so far away?!

4 stars!


What am I reading next?: So Close to You by Rachel Carter