Dark Kiss by Michelle Rowen

Title: Dark Kiss
Author: Michelle Rowen
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: May 22, 2012
Pages: 348 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: ARC from the publisher through NetGalley
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon; Barnes & Noble; Book Depository
 
I don’t do dangerous.


Smart, uber-careful, ordinary Samantha – that’s me. But I just couldn’t pass up a surprise kiss from my number-one unattainable crush. A kiss that did something to me – something strange. Now I feel hungry all the time, but not for food. It’s like part of me is missing – and I don’t know if I can get it back.

Then there’s Bishop. At first I thought he was just a street kid, but the secrets he’s keeping are as intense as his unearthly blue eyes. If he’s what I think he is, he may be the only one who can help me. But something terrifying is closing in, and the one chance Bishop and I have to stop it means losing everything I ever wanted and embracing the darkness inside me.

Review:

Sometimes, I read a book and think it's so hilarious that I'm laughing every few pages and feel genuinely entertained. Sounds like the sign of a good novel, right? Good ones make you really feel and make you laugh or cry, not just snort or tear up. Yeah, that's until I realize I'm not supposed to be laughing because the novel is dead serious. Dark Kiss and my experience with it is best defined as a continuous cycle of those moments that never get any less awkward.

Rowen had a fantastic idea--not necessarily original, but a fine one nonetheless. She could have gone so many places with it and at times, I saw just how great it could have been; though it was shallow, the exploration of how problematic Heaven and Hell's methods of dealing with problems like the Source impressed me. The climax had me glued to the book and offered close to the main storyline of the novel while putting out some very shiny hooks for the next book.

That's pretty much all I can praise I can offer it. The characters and their relationships are poorly developed; Samantha and Bishop's romantic connection starts as insta-love taken to an almost frightening extreme and never gets any stronger. Some tantalizing bits about how Kraven, a demon assigned to the same mission, and Bishop knew each other when they were human are dropped and I don't feel enough is given for it to be really compelling.

Then there's the implication that beautiful people are soulless. That's certainly not beautiful.

Wait, what? Yeah, that kind of pops up. Grays seem to become more attractive to humans after they've been turned, as shown by all the boys that start to drool over Samantha after her change. Applying the implication to the real world was especially fun. Consider what this would mean for Hollywood and all the beautiful people that live there and you might see what I mean. And we've also got our super-hot mean girl, but she--funnily enough--does still have her soul.

The antagonist didn't think out her evil plan. Like, at all. To stop the flow of power to Heaven and Hell like she wants to, she and her legions would have to kill a lot of humans and turn just as many into grays that need to feed on human souls to live. By the time Heaven and Hell fall apart like she wants them too, there will be too many grays and there won't be enough human souls to feed them, leading to the starvation of billions and a planet full of zombie-grays. Following the logic seems clear to me, but not so much for her.

Book two of the series, Wicked Kiss, was set for release in 2013 last time I checked, but I highly doubt I'll check it out. Angel and demon fans that don't discriminate and fans of the author will love Rowen's latest offering, but I can't say I did. Not exactly encouraged to try out any of her other novels after this bucket of cliches.

2 stars!

What am I reading next?: Underworld by Meg Cabot

Taken at Dusk by C.C. Hunter

Spoilers like whoa, readers. By the time you finish this review, you'll know a lot about Taken at Dusk and the Shadow Falls series.

Title: Taken at Dusk
Author: C.C. Hunter
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: April 10, 2012
Pages: 380 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: ARC swapped with another blogger
Purchase: Amazon; Barnes & Noble; Book Depository

Kylie Galen wants the truth so badly she can taste it. The truth about who her real family is, the truth about which boy she’s meant to be with—and the truth about what her emerging powers mean. But she’s about to discover that some secrets can change your life forever…and not always for the better.

Just when she and Lucas are finally getting close, she learns that his pack has forbidden them from being together. Was it a mistake to pick him over Derek? And it’s not just romance troubling Kylie. An amnesia-stricken ghost is haunting her, delivering the frightful warning, someone lives and someone dies. As Kylie races to unravel the mystery and protect those she loves, she finally unlocks the truth about her supernatural identity, which is far different—and more astonishing—than she ever imagined.

Review:

One star? Not zero like it was with the last two books? You're seeing things right. Taken at Dusk was terrible from beginning to end just like its predecessors, but it showed itsy-bitsy signs of improvement. Kylie is still a terrible person and a poor character and the plot barely has any idea what it's doing, yet it's a start.

So the positives: there was something driving the plot of the novel at least half the time. The disappearance of Kylie's grandparents was easily forgotten, but there was the occasional visit from Red and the threat of things trying to kill her (I was always cheering for nature to win that battle, as I'm sure you can guess). When it came up that her boyfriend might be controlling her, Kylie demonstrated the presence and use of .5 brain cells (only .5 because she was still a dolt) by getting worried about it. Fantastic! Entire chapters passed by without a comment from me.

Well, that's it for the praise. Otherwise, this is just as badly written, badly plotted, and easily poked at as the other two books. From panties on fire (she really should see a doctor about that--and take her most recent partner with her) to so much soda that it drowns an Italian fish (but the book does not specify if that much Diet Coke will drown a Vietnamese or Chilean fish), some of the unintentionally hilarious lines in this book can't be made up.

We finally find out what Kylie is! Are you ready for this?

She's sexy and she knows it.

A chameleon. Came right out of the book. The way I read it, she can transform into whatever supernatural being she wants to be, complete with their brain pattern and powers. So she's not the sexy strutting chameleon pictured above. She's just your average Mary Sue in a sea of girls coming out of Hogwart's sorta-secret Sparklypoo house. Characterization is still poor and this is evidence of it. Now that I have saved you about 1,000 pages of reading just to find out what she is, let's move on.

I'm not sure I've seen them do much campy stuff at this camp. You've got your basics of getting up and going to bed, Campmate Hour, the occasional campfire, and eating meals. Does my mind skip over Kylie participating in activities or exercises meant to foster better relationships between the different groups of supernaturals? It's always about her love drama or her friends' love drama or someone trying to kill/kidnap Kylie or scenes meant to fluff up the book. Boring!

The series tend to make a lot of funny word choices. By funny, I mean borderline problematic. Fredericka, the werewolf who loves Lucas and hates Kylie and is overall a piece of cardboard, is often called a she-wolf, reducing her from a person to an animal. I've seen it multiple times where Kylie referred to her boy toys as "sexy as sin" or something along those lines. Why keep comparing boys to sin? Is a girl liking a guy really that bad? What, are girls going to be sluts next just for looking up at a guy through her eyelashes?

There appears to be a quota for unfortunate implications in this series because there's a new one every book. This time around, we have a character one of Kylie's love interests used to have sex with. She is as sweet as can be and never treats Kylie or her friends badly, but Della calls her a slut and the other girls don't exactly object. When the three of them decided to befriend the character, I felt sorry for her. She deserves better than people who call her names behind her back. I really thought this series grew out of the slut shaming, but apparently now. So they're friends, her interest in Derek is no more, she's caught in Kylie the Mary Sue's trap...

And then she dies.

Yeah, calling a female character a slut for having sex with one of Kylie's love interests when Kylie was hardly speaking to him anymore, and then killing her off later? Not a fantastic move.

We also had Kylie, who is a pretty terrible person, being compared to Mother Teresa multiple times with narrative support of characters from all different perspectives complimenting her. What a way to insult the legacy of Mother Teresa: compare her to a judgmental teenager who sees other girls as rivals, slut shames rampantly, and is overall a narrow-minded bucket of vomit. (What? I've got to get creative now that I've decided to drop the use of gendered insults.) Mother Teresa was not perfect, but she's far above Kylie's level.

But you guys. You guys. I think I might not actually bother with the next book, Whispers at Moonrise. This is my cat-scratch series and also something reliably terrible that makes me appreciate the good books more, but now it's showing signs of improvement. It was only a baby step forward, but that's not good. When you follow a horrible series solely because it's horrible, why keep following it when it starts to improve? Same old shtick here: fans will love it, non-fans won't, etc. At least there was minute improvement. Maybe that will make me stay away next time.

1 star!

What am I reading next?: This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Awake at Dawn by C.C. Hunter

Title: Awake at Dawn
Author: C.C. Hunter
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: October 11, 2011
Pages: 383 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase: Amazon; Barnes & Noble; Book Depository

From the moment Kylie Galen arrived at Shadow Falls Camp, she's had one burning question: What am I? Surrounded by vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, fairies, and witches, Kylie longs to figure out her own supernatural identity... and what her burgeoning powers mean. And now she'll need them more than ever, because she's being haunted by a new spirit who insists that someone Kylie knows--and loves--will die before the end of the summer. If only she knew who she was supposed to save. And how.

But giving Kylie the most trouble is her aching heart. Gorgeous werewolf Lucas left camp with another girl, but he's still visiting Kylie in her dreams. And Derek, a sexy half Fae who's always been there for her when she needed him, is pushing her to get more serious--and growing impatient, especially when Lucas returns. Kylie knows she needs to decide between the boys, and it's tearing her up inside.

Yet romance will have to wait, because something from the dark side of the supernatural world is in hiding in Shadow Falls. It's about to threaten everything Kylie holds dear... and bring her closer to her destiny.

Review:

Upon starting Awake at Dawn, I begged it to not to be as bad as Born at Midnight was. My feelings about Born at Midnight can hardly be spoken of. Because I am being punished, it ended up being just as bad as the first book. The few improvements made are not enough to make it any less offensive. I apologize for the long review ahead of time, but there was a lot of stuff I needed to discuss.

In some ways, Awake at Dawn was an improvement on its disastrous series starter. The slut shaming that so deeply permeated Born at Midnight was noticeably absent and I was happy to see it gone, let me tell you (but I would have been happier if the whole "mean girl love rival" trope went with it). Where I had two and a half pages of notebook paper filled, front and back, with notes and rants about Born at Midnight, my notes/rants for this book barely topped one and a half.

The two books share numerous flaws and end up more similar in those respects. A plot is still nowhere to be found; most of it is romance drama and girls talking about their boobs. I wish that were an exaggeration. Juvenile, faintly condescending writing made it hard to read for long stretches of time because all the freakin's, friggin's, and oh crappers did the riverdance on my last nerve while wearing cleats. Quotes like

"Anything?" Kylie asked, not wanting to be the odd duck anymore.

"No. You're still tight as a drum. Any luck reading anyone?"

"No. Maybe I'm a supernatural retard." (52)

and

"Kylie stormed into Holiday's office. She dropped down in the seat across from the desk and looked her friend and camp leader right in the eyes. "I hate boys. I'm seriously considered going lesbian." (126)

perpetuate ugly stereotypes at best and are blatantly offensive at worst. Don't even get me started on the unfortunate implications of giving cancer to a girl who got unfairly maligned for much of the last book just because she had sex and had a pregnancy crisis.

Kylie is still an unbearable, judgmental brat the novel tries to characterize as an angel in need of devoted followers when she's more akin to a demon. (That was actually my guess at her supernatural identity at one point, but I changed my mind. More on that later.) She can't pay attention for her life, she's disrespectful to her friends, and she doesn't know how to take her own medicine like a big girl. Her double standards about how she can friendzone and avoid someone but they can't do the same to her can go in the trash can over there.

Then comes the point where Kylie and her roommates notice that Kylie, a sixteen-year-old girl, has gone up a cup size, gained half a shoe size, and grown an inch taller seemingly overnight. What do they think is the cause? Magic! Puberty? What's that? They never even bring it up. The growth of a sixteen-year-old girl's body can only be contributed to supernatural magic.

This is the exact point at which I cracked. Completely lost it, really. I put the book down and started laughing in the way you only hear from broken people.

Is there no sex education in this fictional Texas? Did Kylie not have to sit through the puberty and sex education videos in fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades the way I had to? I can't believe the idea of puberty making her grow wouldn't occur to her even once. Thanks to this, all arguments about Kylie being an intelligent life form will forever be rendered null and void.

And for some reason, these girls are all obsessed with Holiday's love/sex life. They do not know how she feels about Burnett and they do not get to decide how she feels about him, nor do they get a say in whether or not she has sex with him or needs to. It's her business and these brats can get their noses out of it. I have miniature rants in my notebook stemming from this situation alone, and it gets even longer if you add in the Miranda/Perry/Kevin dramarama. That their meddling and Kylie's repulsive behavior are consistently justified by the narrative drove me up the wall.

So Kylie: what is she? My original guess was that she was a demon, seeing as that would explain why she is such a terrible person. As I read further into the novel, I changed my mind. She is either

A) A chimera-thing created with the intent to kill everyone, or
B) A clone of Anita Blake thrown into Texas so they and similar Mary Sues could take over the fictional world. So what if Kylie is a blonde teenager? That's just to throw off suspicions.

And her love interests the book spends most of its time on? I don't like either of them. Derek lost me with his pervertedness and his sweat that "smelled a little like sunshine (118)". Sunshine doesn't have a scent to begin with and no boy is going to smell good when sweaty unless perfume in involved. Lucas is turning into the epitome of the creepy Nice Guy, the one who befriends a girl and tries to make her feel like she owes him for being such a nice guy to her. That's all I have to say about that. For a book that is ninety-seven percent romance, three percent other, I have surprisingly little to say about the central romance.

Taken at Dusk is in my possession and I'll be reading it too just because I managed to get a copy, but I need something good and fluffy first. One of these days, my own nature is going to be my downfall.

0 stars!

What am I reading next?: Forgiven by Jana Oliver

Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres

Happy holidays, everyone! I hope everything is going well for you. May 2012 bring good tidings and even better books for all of us.

Title: Burn Bright
Author: Marianne de Pierres
Publisher: Random House Australia
Release Date: March 1, 2011
Pages: 316 pages (paperback)

Into a world of wild secrets and deadly pleasures comes a girl whose innocence may be her greatest strength.

In Ixion music and party are our only beliefs. Darkness is our comfort. We have few rules but they are absolute . . .

Retra doesn’t want to go to Ixion, the island of ever-night, ever-youth and never-sleep. Retra is a Seal – sealed minds, sealed community. She doesn’t crave parties and pleasure, experience and freedom.

But her brother Joel left for Ixion two years ago, and Retra is determined to find him. Braving the intense pain of her obedience strip to escape the only home she’s ever known, Retra stows away on the barge that will take her to her brother.

When she can’t find Joel, Retra finds herself drawn deeper into the intoxicating world of Ixion. Come to me, whispers a voice in her head. Who are the Ripers, the mysterious guardians of Ixion? What are the Night Creatures Retra can see in the shadows? And what happens to those who grow too old for Ixion?

Retra will find that Ixion has its pleasures, but its secrets are deadly. Will friendship, and the creation of an eternal bond with a Riper, be enough to save her from the darkness?

Listen well, baby bats. Burn bright, but do not stray from the paths. Remember, when you live in a place of darkness you also live with creatures of the dark.

Review:

After her brother's escape from their strict home to Ixion, the land of never-sleep and ever-night, Retra and her family are assigned a warden and watched 24/7. After so long without her brother, the one person who made her life in the Seal South bearable, she decides to follow him to Ixion and convince him to come with her--not back to their home, but somewhere else. The flashing lights, parties, and people she encounters on Ixion threaten to distract her. Who are the Ripers, and what is the secret behind Ixion that they're trying to keep hidden?

Two days was all it took me to finish Burn Bright after pining after it for close to a year. The mix of a great main character in quiet Retra, just enough details dropped in to keep the reader interested, just enough details left out to keep the reader going, and a dystopian world all its own kept me hooked and up later than I should have been just so I could finish reading. Maybe it helped a little bit to be thrown in and forced to pay attention so I wouldn't miss anything.

Yes, another dystopian. I know, I know, there are a million dystopian novels and series out there right now and while some are good, most aren't worth the paper they're printed on or their large advances. This novel right here is one of the good ones.  I'm not big on the dystopian trend and never have been, so I hope it means something when I say it. Ixion is a world to remember and while a smart reader may pick up the hints and figure out the big secret before it's revealed, it remains shocking nonetheless.

While I did love Burn Bright, it still had its issues. The explanation as to why minor antagonist character Cal was the way she was didn't work for me; I still felt she was a cardboard character that could have been written better. The cycles of Retra asking people something/other characters infodumping on her and someone asking Retra what happened to her/she tells them/the other character is shocked got old quickly. As beautiful as the world of Ixion sounded and as lush as the descriptions were, I had a lot of trouble coming up with a mental visual of Ixion and all its churches and clubs.

This may be the one time I wish I lived in Australia. Though the thought of living there makes me think OH MY GOD GIANT EFFING SPIDERS ARACHNOPHOBIA IN OVERDRIVE or something along those lines, it would mean I could have easier access to a copy of Angel Arias, the second book of this trilogy. If only I had the money to order it right now... Time to start saving, I think.

I really want to see this published around the world so more readers can enjoy it, so everyone who wants to see it brought to their country should:

• Like the Burn Bright and the Publish Burn Bright Worldwide Facebook pages;
• Link your review of the book (if you read it and wrote a review) on the Burn Bright campaign page on Strangemore;
• Sign the petition, also on Strangemore's Burn Bright campaign page.

4 stars!

What am I reading next?: Entwined by Heather Dixon

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

Title: Crescendo
Author: Becca Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Release Date: October 19, 2010
Pages: 427 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Read it on my Kindle

Nora Grey's life is still far from perfect. Surviving an attempt on her life wasn't pleasant, but at least she got a guardian angel out of it: a mysterious, magnetic, gorgeous guardian angel. But, despite his role in her life, Patch has been acting anything but angelic. He's more elusive than ever and even worse, he's started spending time with Nora's arch-enemy, Marcie Millar.

Nora would have hardly noticed Scott Parnell, an old family friend who has moved back to town, if Patch hadn't been acting so distant. Even with Scott's totally infuriating attitude Nora finds herself drawn to him - despite her lingering feeling that he's hiding something.

Haunted by images of her murdered father, and questioning whether her Nephilim bloodline has anything to do with his death, Nora puts herself increasingly in dangerous situations as she desperately searches for answers. But maybe some things are better left buried, because the truth could destroy everything - and everyone - she trusts.

Review:

Oh, Crescendo. I always told myself I wouldn't read it, but I wanted so badly to join in my friends' discussions of the many problematic elements of this series. If they could suffer through it, why couldn't I? (And maybe just a little bit of it was my contrary nature responding to the "Be Nice" BS But only a little.) I couldn't do that without reading all the books currently available, so into Crescendo I dove. I regret this. I regret every minute wasted on it.

This series is discussed enough for its problematic content, but it really gets kicked up a notch in this book. A scene late in the book where people just stand around and laugh at Nora when she's trying to get away from Scott made me want a trash can. It troubles me that the word "no" does not seem to exist in this series, as Nora can only ever come up with excuses not to do something with a guy, which will lead to him trying again later in hopes of there not being an excuse anymore, instead of giving him a flat-out no.

Nora. Oh, Nora. I thought I hated this brainless, immature, slut shaming, unapologetic, overly angsty monster of a human being in the first book, but she's five times worse in Crescendo. She goes full-blown psychotic on everyone. Breaking into people's houses multiple times, considering suicide over Patch not being with her anymore, indirectly and directly calling Marcie a slut more often than she can come up with a coherent thought of her own,... And this is our main character who, if my reading of the text is correct, we are supposed to support despite--no, because of--her actions. She takes a sledgehammer to the lives of everyone she knows while trying to get her happy ending and I don't see why I'm supposed to like her.

Just when I thought Patch couldn't get any worse, he did. The way he jerked Nora back and forth, pushing her away one minute and pulling her back in the next so they could make out, disgusted me and almost made me feel sorry for Nora that she's trapped in such a toxic dynamic with this man. How the reader is expected to view Patch gave me a nasty case of whiplash. In the first book, we're supposed to find his innuendos, controlling behavior, manhandling, and general asshattery romantic and sexy. Now we're supposed to hate him for it? Which one is it? I hated him in both books, but this case of mixed messages reveals exactly what is wrong with Patch's character.

I am not always the most grammatically correct person on the Internet, and I get even less sensible in the real world because verbal communication is difficult for me, but Crescendo often makes less sense than I do in either world. There are numerous sentences that read horribly despite an arguable technical correctness. For example: "She should have learned her lesson at Bo's and stayed home. And so should have I (Crescendo, 28%)." All it takes to fix a problem like this is different phrasing, but the book can't even do that much.

Inconsistent characterization for the sake of conflict is a big pet peeve. In the first book, few people objected to Nora getting close to Patch, especially not Nora's best friend Vee. Now everyone, especially Vee, is against him. One minute, Vee is boy-crazy. The next, she's 100% dedicated to her new beau Rixon. The mom is brought in simply to act as another barrier between Nora and Patch and a slew of minor characters get thrown in just to try and drum up some more conflict when it's never going to happen. Crescendo and conflict are incompatible.

Not that the book would have been good if any of those characters were more consistent. Just as it happened in the first book, the prologue gave everything away. For all the talk of the archangels, they're never actually a threat. We're constantly told the archangels are watching and breathing down Patch's neck, but he and Nora get away with so much that it makes the "threat" the archangels are supposed to pose nonexistent and makes them look like idiots. This is a disservice to the book and slander toward the archangels.

All the evidence I need to prove how unhealthy Patch and Nora's relationship is can be found in this book. Scott and Patch are undeniably the same kind of person: the bad boy who will take a girl and put her through hell. She can recognize that Scott is this kind of person and has no problem saying so, but she refuses to recognize Patch is the same way. I thought she did for one moment, but her eventual forgiveness of Patch renders that null and void. Neither of them can leave the other alone after the breakup and just when Nora feels ready to move on, Patch pulls her right back into his trap. Once again, I almost feel sorry for Nora. Close but no cigar.

The most maddening detail of their endless relationship angst? Neither party is sympathetic. Nora is downright obsessive, contradicting, and psychotic. The main difference between Patch's behavior pre- and post-breakup is that there were less innuendos post-breakup, but we're supposed to hate him for his behavior in this book when readers were supposed to find it sexy in the last book. This controlling douchecanoe of a man jerks Nora back and forth, but she's stealing from other people's homes because of him, and they both treat each other horribly. I wish both of them would die, preferably by being tortured to death by axe murderers.

And in the end, Nora forgives him. All that manhandling and controlling behavior and playing hot-and-cold with her that she hated him for when they were broken up? She forgives him for all of it. Based on my readings of Hush, Hush and Crescendo, I feel Nora only had a problem with his controlling behavior in this book because they were not together. If they had still been dating, she would have been fine with it. That this is supposed to be okay and readers are supposed to find this romantic makes me sick yet again. This book made me fill up my vomit bucket.

But I will admit one thing: This book made me cry... because it was so terrible. I also cried for Marcie. Marcie, who never had a chance as a character. Marcie, who is slut shamed at every turn while the reader is supposed to think Nora is the "good girl" (and as I elaborated earlier, Nora is anything but). Marcie, who is the closest thing to a complex, flawed character this series has but is here mainly for readers to hate by slandering her at every turn. Marcie, who is bullied and degraded more by Nora than she ever bullies Nora in return. She is not a good person, but Marcie is far more likable than Nora. Heck, I think Marcie's worst crime is having no idea what it means to be tactful--kind of like me.

Going on would be no problem because the problems in this book are endless, but twelve paragraphs is enough and I wanted to get started on the long road to healing. I was supposed to read Silence after this to continue what I lovingly dubbed the Speak Up mini-project, but I can't do it. If this one was so bad it made me cry because it was so terrible, how am I supposed to be able to survive Silence and eventually the fourth book? I can't, man. I just can't. I'm signing off and grabbing a better book.

0 stars! (And I would give it negative stars if I rated books that way.)

What am I reading next?: Ash by Malinda Lo

Possess by Gretchen McNeil

Title: Possess
Author: Gretchen McNeil
Publisher: HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray
Release Date: August 23, 2011
Pages: 384 pages (hardback)
How I Got the Book: Bought and read it on my Kindle

Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her mom, by the cute son of a local police sergeant, and by the eerie voices she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Unfortunately for Bridget, it turns out the voices are demons – and Bridget has the rare ability to banish them back to whatever hell they came from.

Terrified to tell people about her new power, Bridget confides in a local priest who enlists her help in increasingly dangerous cases of demonic possession. But just as she is starting to come to terms with her new power, Bridget receives a startling message from one of the demons. Now Bridget must unlock the secret to the demons' plan before someone close to her winds up dead – or worse, the human vessel of a demon king.

Review:

Growing up is hard enough as it is after the murder of her father a year ago, but Bridget Liu has an extra problem on top of that: she's an exorcist that can hear demons. A warning given to her by a demon during her first exorcism sets her on edge; could the demons be lying as Monsignor Renault has taught her they do or are they really trying to get a message across? More messages, all along the lines that something is coming and she must beware, lead her to a horrible discovery: someone is going to attempt to summon the demon king Amaymon and someone close to Bridget may becomes his vessel.

While I loved Bridget and her sense of humor (and that she was POC because we need more great POC heroines--winkwinkwinknudgenudgenudge), I wasn't keen on any of the other characters, particularly Matt and Alexa. Matt didn't quite win my approval as Bridget's love interest; I thought he was a little condescending and pushy. Possess showed such promise and this is why is made me very sad that Alexa's character had to be that of a stereotype mean girl and she had to be shamed for having sex and enjoying it. She will no doubt play a bigger role in the sequel (tentatively scheduled for fall 2013) and I can only hope she will be given more depth then.

The exorcism element of the novel was fantastic and McNeil wrote some very good and very, very creepy scenes. If only some of the scenes I wrote could turn out as well as the scene in the doll shop! The mythology got more right than most angel/demon/etc. books currently published and popular. A few things were off about it, though, and I'll excuse those for the sake of creative license. Liberties get taken sometimes.(And Kira darling, if you ever read this: The book gives credit to Semyaza as leader of the Watchers. For serious. It's a one-line thing, but it's better than some books do, right?)

The book positively flew by thanks to great pacing, smooth writing, and how overall enjoyable it was despite the little issues I had with it. I devoured large chunks of the book in single sittings and had the book finished in about three days. There were a few plot-related stumbles that really through me out of the groove, though. One was a plot point about another character that was brought up around halfway through the book, completely forgotten about, and only brought up again in the final chapter. Then Matt and Bridget are searching her house for the key to stopping Amaymon from coming and what do they have? A makeout break! Just as bad as the sex breaks of adult books but with fewer pages consumed and less sex (usually).

Now that all the set-up work is done and readers are familiar with the mythology of the world, I look forward to seeing where the sequel can take us. Definitely recommended (unless shaming girls for having sex makes you spazz out in the bad way, in which case proceed with caution)!

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Swear by Nina Malkin

H.Y.P.E. Project: Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Beware: spoilers for Starcrossed lie beyond this point.

Title: Starcrossed
Author: Josephine Angelini
Publisher: HarperCollins/HarperTeen
Release Date: May 31, 3011
Pages: 487 pages (hardback)
How I Got the Book: Read it on my Kindle for the H.Y.P.E. Project (details here)

How do you defy destiny?

 

Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it's getting harder. Nightmares of a desperate desert journey have Helen waking parched, only to find her sheets damaged by dirt and dust. At school she's haunted by hallucinations of three women weeping tears of blood . . . and when Helen first crosses paths with Lucas Delos, she has no way of knowing they're destined to play the leading roles in a tragedy the Fates insist on repeating throughout history.

 

As Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend. But even demigod powers might not be enough to defy the forces that are both drawing her and Lucas together—and trying to tear them apart.

Review:

"She was hunkered down on her knees, her face covered by her filthy hair, moaning names and saying "blood for blood" as she hit her forehead repeatedly against the wall." This is a quote from Starcrossed (the page can't be cited due to reading it as an ebook) about one of the Furies, but this is also an accurate description of me once I finished reading this book.

For sixteen years, Helen has lived on the calm, small, and very boring island of Nantucket and wished she could go somewhere else. Then Lucas Delos and his family moved to town, and Helen introduced herself to them by attempting to kill Lucas in the middle of school. According to Lucas and his family, they and Helen are Scions, demigod descendants of the Greek gods, and the Furies are forcing to play roles they have forced on others throughout history. Helen and Lucas have broken one part of the cycle of blood for blood, but they will still be forced to play the starcrossed lovers.

Characters

Not very good. Helen is surprisingly stupid for how smart she supposedly is (telling the reader about a character is bad due to contradictory characterization like this) and a massive Mary Sue the likes of which I have not seen in a long time. All the descriptions of how beautiful, talented, perfect, and flawless she was made me want to puke. I would like to see Lucas put through a shredder. Wait, Helen isn't the only one with the Idiot Ball; everyone has a personal Idiot Ball they carry at all times and clutch like pearls toward the end of the novel, when Daphne comes in and everyone believes her despite her being who she is. Otherwise, the characters are unremarkable.

Plot/Pacing

While the novel does have a plot and is generally well-paced (by this, I mean the reader doesn't have to wait until they are three-fourths through the lengthy novel to find out what is going on), it still manages to be boring. The plot and pacing, as derivative as they are (and not of The Illiad and Romeo and Juliet, the two works that inspired this novel), would have earned the novel another star if not for the outstanding sexism and misogyny detailed in the next section.

Themes/Conflicts

This has to be one of the most sexist pieces of trash I have ever read, if not the most sexist piece of trash. Helen has no say in her relationship with Lucas; she is subject to his whims and the boundaries and terms of their relationship are solely defined by him. It's all about what he wants and what he can handle and nothing she ever says is taken into account. It is always up to him to impose control on Helen so she won't tempt him because everything she does tempts him, and she has to stop tempting him or else bad things will happen. It's always the woman's fault because she tempted men into doing it, you see.

Lucas never puts any trust in Helen and will not let her be in control of her own sexuality. He even makes all of her decisions (with only minor, temporary objections from Helen)! I won't even go into the implications of needing to destroy a feminine object of power to free men from their lust. I have lot to say about "A lady never cheapened herself by using foul language" and most of them begin with a word starting with f. No lady is any less of a lady for cursing and sexist rhetoric like this really grinds my gears.

This quote is telling of the novel:

""She hasn't been feeling well," he explained to Castor, who looked on with sympathy.

""I have a daughter," Castor replied gently as if that explained everything."

However it is meant, that is not a joke. That is flat-out misogyny and it only gets worse throughout the novel.

Writing

The stuff of my nightmares. It tells the reader absolutely everything, especially if it's as unimportant as what car the teacher drives or that a one-off nameless character has a leather fetish. It seems like a Herculean task for it to show the reader something or stay on-task. The imagery is atrocious and the narration is constantly cheating. It's one thing to change to another character's point of view for a chapter because it's important to the plot; it's another thing to do it for exactly one paragraph or even sentence or when it has no importance in any possible way. Even the action scenes were made boring thanks to the info-dump heavy, clunky writing.

Logic

There is one thing that can't even be called a plot hole or hole in logic; the only proper term for it is a brain fart. Close to the end, Helen and Lucas decide they can't be together because they're first cousins. This would pass me by without comment (I am unbothered by first cousins being together) if it weren't for the fact that marrying your first cousin is legal in Massachusetts, where Nantucket is located. In Spain, where Lucas's family comes from, it is legal to marry your first cousin. Finally, the ancient Greeks Helen and Lucas are descended from practiced--guess what?--first-cousin marriage.

They are not cousins after all (I suppose someone said there couldn't be any genuine conflict in the novel), but the point is that at the end of the novel, they believe they are. Someone should have done their research because if it's supposed to be a conflict of some sort, it shouldn't be legal from every possible angle. There is the social unpopularity to consider, but Lucas and Helen don't seem like the type that would let that stop them. When you're truly in love, public opinion no longer matters.

Was it worth the hype?

As many did, I heard about it when Angelini received a seven-figure advance for the trilogy Starcrossed is the beginning of. Even then, I took issue with the novel; its sexist pitch of being "Percy Jackson for teenage girls" told me this would not be the book for me (my thoughts on the pitch are better explained here). Alas, the H.Y.P.E. Project is about hyped books and such a massive advance gave Starcrossed a lot of hype, so I read it anyway. I do not always make smart decisions, as you can see.

It is wonderful that Angelini's advance got her out of a rough situation, but I do not believe, based on what I have read, that the trilogy will be worth the advance it got or recoup all the money spent on it. The novel is most certainly not worth the hype. I will not be reading the next installments, but I do hope there is not a happy ending. Star-crossed, as you know, means ill-fated. Star-crossed people do not have a happy ending and if Lucas and Helen end up with a happy ending, we have another case of people not knowing how to use words correctly.

Bonus cover section

Pictures of it you see on the Internet, such as the one I used above, are very plain and don't seem likely to catch the eye, but they're slightly more noticeable in real life, such as if you see them in a bookstore. They have a certain metallic shine to them that catches light well, effectively making it a noticeable cover despite how truly plain it is. I take issue with Lauren Kate's author blurb on the cover, though; YA novels in general should not be allowed to use starcrossed and saga, among other words, until they learn how to use them correctly.

0 stars!

What am I reading next?: dancergirl by Carol M. Tanzman

Modelland by Tyra Banks

Title: Modelland
Author: Tyra Banks
Publisher: Random House/Delacorte Press
Release Date: Setember 13, 2011
Pages: 576 pages (hardback)
How I Got the Book: Amazon Vine-provided ARC

No one gets in without being asked. And with her untamable hair, large forehead, and gawky body, Tookie De La Crème isn’t expecting an invitation. Modelland—the exclusive, mysterious place on top of the mountain—never dares to make an appearance in her dreams.

But someone has plans for Tookie. Before she can blink her mismatched eyes, Tookie finds herself in the very place every girl in the world obsesses about. And three unlikely girls have joined her.

Only seven extraordinary young women become Intoxibellas each year. Famous. Worshipped. Magical. What happens to those who don’t make it? Well, no one really speaks of that. Some things are better left unsaid.

Thrown into a world where she doesn’t seem to belong, Tookie glimpses a future that could be hers—if she survives the beastly Catwalk Corridor and terrifying Thigh-High Boot Camp. Or could it? Dark rumors like silken threads swirl around the question of why Tookie and her new friends were selected . . . and the shadows around Modelland hide sinister secrets.

Are you ready? Modelland is waiting for you...

Why I Didn't Finish This Book:

192 pages. I made it exactly one-third of the way through Modelland before I reached the point where I couldn't take it anymore and put the book down for the final time.

I knew what I was in for from the beginning. If the first thing the main character does when the novel begins is squirt whipped cream into her mouth from a can as she lays on a school hallway floor, it's not going to be a good book. The premise itself didn't give me much hope, but it would be good snarkbait, right? I might even learn a few things about what I should and should not do when writing.

Reader, all I have to show for what I managed to read is dead brain cells. Nothing good came of this book, not even a lesson in how not to write a novel.

A story with a point: Some years ago, a new building had to be built specifically to house the business my father worked for. Though numerous instances of theft delayed the project and made it take longer, what really delayed construction was the construction workers, who worked slower than a dead man walks. When all was said and done, the building was done over a year behind schedule.

The point? The book's pacing is abysmally slow, even slower than those construction workers. The inciting incident of the novel, the event that get the plot moving, does not happen until page 111. By page 192, very little else has happened. It's all descriptions of clothes and doing unimportant things and minimal worldbuilding. Might Modelland get some wiggle room due to its length? Absolutely not. I have read lengthier novels with much faster pacing. Awful, stilted writing didn't make reading the book any easier. We're not discussing the writing any further. You can't even know until you take a peek inside yourself.

But not all novels are plot-driven! Some are character-driven! Well, there is nothing about the characters in Modelland that could drive the story. Tookie is dull and so much time is spent making her an average girl, a Forgetta-Girl, that she manages to turn into a special snowflake Mary Sue. None of the side characters inspired any interest either, and I hated to see the usual mean girl love rival trope step in with Zarpessa. (Have I mentioned that while half the names in the book are normal, the other half are random arrangements of consonants and vowels? No? Now you know.) None of the women have any aspirations unrelated to being good enough to go to Modelland and this is about as far away from okay as it can get.

By the one-third point of the book, at least a few questions should be answered, but nothing was clear and there were inconsistencies. So Tookie is a Forgetta-Girl and people usually don't remember her and walk around her like she doesn't exist. What makes Lizzie and Zarpessa, for instance, see her when teachers don't? The extent and details of her "power" were never explained and nothing made me think they would be at one point. What is the point of this dystopia?

Furthermore, I can't begin to fathom how Tookie's world got to where it was. How did it become a shallow, fashion-obsessed society? Because there is no way it has always been like this. It's impossible. What is the government's roll in this, because the government is always involved in dystopian fiction? Why is there so much misogyny smeared on every possible surface? I'm sure much of this is explained later in the book (maybe not the last one), but it's the author's responsibility to make me want to read to that point, not mine. I shouldn't have to force myself through a book like I did with most of Modelland.

As I've seen someone else say, this book is a feminist's worst nightmare. Men are reduced to a woman's accessory, only for how good they look on her arm and what they can do for her when she doesn't want to do it. Objectification is wrong no matter what. Also, boys appear to be the solution to all your problems. It's said at one point that one character wouldn't be in trouble if only she'd had the right boyfriend (and this is in a situation where who they're dating has nothing to do with anything). The book tries so hard with the message of all girls being beautiful, but the bad listed above and that I can't even rein in my anger enough to list overwhelm it.

Parts of this book were just plain WTF. Not alternate-universe-or-dystopia-WTF, which my suspension of disbelief covers, but this-makes-no-sense-in-any-universe kind of WTF. I'm not sure it's safe for a man with only one eye to be driving the car and I don't think I need to restate the whipped cream scene mentioned above. A change in temperature as severe as going from sweltering hot to hair-freezing cold within mere minutes will do serious harm to the body, but Tookie is fine.

The sad thing is that Banks seems so serious about the book both in interviews and in the reader's note for the book--she puts a lot of herself into this book (the SM-IZEs and so much more) and I can practically hear her narrating it. I know that feeling of having a passion for writing because I have that same passion for it. Unfortunately, having a passion for it is not equal to having a talent for it and nothing in the 192 pages I could stomach proved to be that Banks is an adequate fiction writer. She has a lot of room for improvement.

I need to stop making my book decisions in part based on entertaining my Goodreads friends with my annoyance and flabbergastery. It never leads me to any good books.

What am I reading next?: Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade

H.Y.P.E. Project: Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

Title: Hush, Hush

Author: Becca Fitzpatrick

Publisher: Simon & Schuster/ Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Release Date: October 13, 2009

Pages: 391 pages (paperback)

How I Got the Book: Bought and read it for the H.Y.P.E. Project (details here)

When Nora and Patch are forced together as lab partners, Nora would rather fall to her death than put up with his elusive answers to her questions, his teasing, and his infuriatingly handsome face and hypnotizing eyes. It seems Patch was put on earth just to drive her crazy.

But before long, Nora's defenses begin to break down as her curiosity about Patch heats up. Why does he always seem to be wherever she is and know exactly what she's thinking? How does he know what to say to both attract and repulse her? And what is up with those V-shaped scars on his chiseled back?

As their connection grows stronger, Nora's own life becomes increasingly fragile. Nora needs to decide: Is Patch the one who wants to do her harm of the one who will keep her safe? Has she fallen for one of the fallen?

Becca Fitzpatrick's New York Times bestselling debut is a page-turning leap into the unknown world of fallen angels. Do you have someone to catch you?

Review:

Something is off about Patch Cipriano and his unfortunate new biology partner Nora Grey is determined to find out what's it is. She can tell there's something more going on behind that pretty face and those demeaning remarks of his. In her investigation, she comes to find herself attracted to him and she could quite possibly be falling in love with him, but could what she's finding be true? Could Patch really be a fallen angel out to kill her (and maybe Vee too, but who cares about her?)? If it is, it doesn't look like he's the only one who wants to see Nora dead. Strange things are happening and only some of them are in her head.

Characters

Characterization is thin and calling them two-dimensional is an insult to the term. Nora seems to lack any brains and my I've no doubt she is mentally unstable; if she thinks faking a bomb threat to get Patch's file is okay because she's his biology partner, something is wrong. The only person I can stand is Marcie Millar, the classic mean girl (who apparently becomes a love rival in the second book or something; I've got no plans to read it, so I don't know all the details), but she is busy being slut-shamed and made the butt of a thousand jokes. Being mean makes her a bad person, not being flirtatious or sexual. Got that, book? Okay.

Two characters in the cast stand out for the wrong reasons. Vee may be the worst best friend I've ever had the displeasure to know in both fiction and real life, and I've had a terrible best friend of my own (but that's another story). She makes excuses for a guy who threatened her "best friend" Nora, abandons Nora, and pressures Nora to be with a guy she does not like, among other things. She is the second-worst character in this book.

The worst? Patch Cipriano. His behavior is disgusting, borderline abusive, and the sort of behavior parents tell their children to watch out for because it could turn into a toxic or abusive relationship. When the heroine is genuinely afraid of her love interest and thinks he might rape her (and there were plenty of moments where it seemed like he would do just that) as in Hush, Hush, the love interest is on my blacklist. There's being a bad boy or anti-hero (which requires redeeming traits) and then there's being a borderline rapist, which Patch is. He's the polar opposite of sexy.

Pacing/Plot

The pacing and plot are disjointed. This is about how the novel goes: Nora and Patch are falling in love (personally, I think they're falling in lust, which would be fine if it weren't being passed off as love when the two are very different), a creepy event or two happens once in a while, Nora and Patch fall in love some more, more creepy things, rotate between the two and add in liberal amounts of  disgusting behavior by Patch added where needed, big reveal, sudden reveal of villains, an almost-sex break, climactic scene, and end on a sappy note. That is Hush, Hush in a nutshell, only it's far less interesting.

Themes/Conflicts

Hush, Hush competes with only one other novel for the award of Worst Themes. According to this book, it is okay for a boy to humiliate, threaten, dismiss, and treat a girl badly because that just makes him a sexy bad boy. This is probably only okay when the guy is as insanely hot as Patch is supposed to be (I don't find him hot; I find that when a guy has a personality as pleasant as the smell of dog crap, it becomes impossible to appreciate how hot they are) because if it were a plain or ugly guy doing it, it would be Not Okay. Nora never has any true conflict to deal with and the book's conflict isn't genuine.

What I hate most about this book is how its themes help glorify creepy, pseudo-rapist behavior through Nora's initial weak rejection and ultimate unconditional acceptance of the way Patch treats her (which does not change throughout the entire novel). His behavior is horrifying and the people who instead call it flattering are often the people who say I should be flattered at all the awful, creepy things guys have said and done to me over the years when I didn't want them behaving like that towards me and made it clear.

There are simply so many offensive ideas and phrases within the book, such as the heavy reinforcing of rape culture, but I don't have the space or time to cover them all.

Writing

Painful. Description is often bad or repetitive and there appears to be no such thing as subtlety because hints are like a bag of bricks to the head each time they pop up. Then it gets lazy for the sake of plot convenience when the symptoms of a concussion, such as difficulty or unwillingness to talk due to the injury, are waved off so Vee can testify to Nora about her attacker and when Vee gets out of the hospital far quicker than someone in her condition would, or when Elliot is identified in a news story as someone questioned in the death of another student. I don't need to be a three-year journalism student to know no news service would identify a minor if they had only been questioned. Charged or convicted? Often, yes. Questioned? No.

There is also one offensive issue regarding word choice that I would like to bring up. Vee, an overweight character, is described as "voluptuous" multiple times. Right now, the United States (where the book is set and where I, the author, and countless fans live) is experiencing a problem with obesity and there are multiple campaigns against it. What comes to mind when you think of "voluptuous" women? Personally, I think of women with large breasts, usually thin waists, and sometimes large butts. At one time, it was used to describe more than women with that figure, but that is what it's used to describe most often now.

Vee is clearly not this body type from her description and the book creeps around describing her as overweight or fat. The creeping around is bad enough because of how much it reveals about what Nora really thinks of Vee, but the I don't appreciate that women with that sort of figure (hourglass figure, right?) are indirectly being called fat. Nine times out of ten, they can't control their figure that easily; losing weight won't make their breasts any smaller in most cases because it's genetic. This is the author's problem now, not the book's. If there's anything the author can control, it's the specific word choice.

Logic

Almost nonexistent. Why would an entire class as important as biology be axed over sex ed? More likely, the teaching guidelines would be changed to exclude sex ed. No teacher would ever allow one student to humiliate another the way Patch humiliated Nora and if they did, they wouldn't get away with it. Then there's what happened due to the lazy writing, discussed in the writing section. The biggest fart in logic may be, as I said earlier, how in the world Nora falls in love with Patch when he treats her so terribly. Someone can make you feel tingly all over and make you want to screw them, but that doesn't always mean you're in love. That's lust, a separate entity from love, and that's what's really between Nora and Patch.

I may not be a mother, but I am baffled and horrified at the behavior of Nora's mother. Just a year after the murder of her husband, Nora's mom has a job that takes her far away from her daughter for long periods of time and they appear to have very little contact with one another. Shouldn't she be getting closer, not farther away? I speak from personal experience on that. Honestly, there were so many farts in logic, writing, characterization, and everything else that I couldn't find the words a few times and could only write squiggles in the book.

Was it worth the hype?

The hype that this book is sexy, dark, has the sexiest hunk of man/fallen angel to grace the pages of a book, romantic, and great? Absolutely not.

The hype that this book is terrible, infuriating, boring, anti-feminist, provides the world with both one of the worst best friends/friendships to grace the pages of a book and the worst love interest to exist in any media, and is most likely the most reprehensible YA novel to be published in recent memory? Without a doubt, yes. I wouldn't wish this book on my worst enemy.

Bonus cover section

This may be the best part of the book: its cover. While the color scheme has difficulty standing out, the image is striking and can easily catch the eye of someone passing by in a bookstore (which I tested out and confirmed last time I visited a bookstore). However, it immediately gives away what the book is about and if a passing reader decides to buy the book and read it, they will probably become frustrated that it takes Nora so long (about 250 pages) to figure out what Patch is when they knew before they even began reading.

0 stars!

What am I reading next?: Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev

Hades by Alexandra Adornetto

Title: Hades
Author: Alexandra Adornetto
Publisher: Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: August 30, 2011
Pages: 422 pages (hardback)
How I Got the Book: Amazon Vine-provided ARC

Even the love of her boyfriend, Xavier Woods, and her siblings, Gabriel and Ivy, can't keep the angel Bethany Church from being tricked into a motorcycle ride that ends up in Hell. There, Jake Thorn bargains for Beth's release back to Earth. But what he asks of her will destroy her, and quite possibly, her loved ones. Can he be trusted in this wager?

Alexandra Adornetto's Hades has it all--good and evil, angels and demons, romance and heartbreak.

Review:

Almost six months after Halo, Bethany and her boyfriend Xavier are preparing to graduate from high school and go to college. Jake is freed from Hell after some fun with Ouija boards at a Halloween party goes wrong and he easily tricks Bethany into going to Hell with him. Bethany finds herself miserable, but the Lake of Dreams provides a way to see how Xavier, Gabriel, and Ivy are faring. While they try and find a way to break Beth out of the prison called Hell, Jake is working his hardest to seduce Bethany because if he gets his way, she's staying in Hell as his princess.

I can sum up why I felt the way I did about this book in two quick points:

• Bethany uses a Ouija board. Again, an angel of God uses a Ouija board, a very powerful and dangerous occult item.
• If Bethany had applied any logical thought to the situation, she could have avoided being tricked and taken to Hell. Everything about the situation, from how they left on foot but came back with a motorcycle to the person's admittance of drinking, should have made Bethany wary of riding with them. It didn't.

This was an error in the ARC that didn't make it into the final copy, but it was such a gem that I want to make sure people know it was there: Jake steps on the gas pedal of his motorcycle at one point. Motorcycles have throttle on the right handlebar that you twist, not gas pedals. Adornetto's lack of experience and inability to do research show, but this no longer counts toward the book's rating.

Are you still unconvinced and feel I need to go more in-depth? Keep reading.

The characters remain nearly unchanged. Bethany has me convinced a side effect of an angel so young coming to Earth is that her brain didn't come with her. Xavier is still a bland love interest with shades of controlling and Jake is still a failure in every corner as a villain. Ivy takes a level in badass and Gabriel manages to change a little too. Molly's growth or likability is debatable, but her dramatics later in the book didn't endear her to me. New characters such as mean girl demon Asia and friendly demons Tucker and Hanna are flat too. Even Lucifer, the legendary fallen angel of legend, falls flat and is unconvincing as someone charismatic enough to make other angels turn against God.

There is a noticeable lack of research and there are discontinuities between Halo and Hades that desperately need correction before final publication. In Halo, Xavier was school captain and there were rugby players; in Hades, he's the class president (the US term for school captain, the latter being what it's called in the author's native country Australia) and they now play football instead of rugby. The motorcycle gas pedal gaffe is another example, and I could go on.

In fact, I will because a lot of the inaccuracies have to do with myths. As far as I know (and supported by one of the BFFs), a third of the angels in Heaven fell with Lucifer. In Hades, only eight fell, which is directly stated because of its importance in the worldbuilding. There were more than twenty-four angels in Heaven in the beginning, I'm sure The river Lethe makes you forget everything, not just the bad deeds you did, and of all the fallen angels to make an Original and a prince of one of Hell's nine circles, Arakiel isn't a good choice. Try Semyaza, leader of the Watchers and Arakiel's superior. (Thanks and credit go to Kira for teaching me that.)

This is a pet peeve and it had no bearing at all on my rating, but I was disappointed at how little research was done into the setting too. Venus Cove is stated as being in the coastal county of Sherbrooke County, Georgia. Sherbrooke County does not exist, but there are approximately 18 coastal counties in the state of Georgia. Maybe this bothers me because I'm a Georgia-born girl and I would like to see my home state get a more accurate spotlight put on it (or maybe the book could just not be set in Georgia at all; that would be nice).

Bethany and Xavier's relationship remains unhealthy as they continue to focus on one another's physical attributes instead of their personalities. Bonus: They both creepily take a whiff of each other's clothing before they go to bed. This book somehow made me more confused as to what they see in one another. Bethany sees how snappish and moody Xavier gets when under pressure and never considers that if she stays with him, she would be the target of his misdirected ire. And there's a chapter early in the book that lacks any significance to the story as a whole; it reads like a "screw you!" from author to reader specifically written for that purpose.

Did you hate how Bethany let Xavier protect and save her instead of trying to protect and save herself? It gets no better. In all her time in Hell, she makes one escape attempt. And of all the reasons one could come up with for wanting to get out of Hell (because it's a terrible place, or because demons are either trying to sex her up (consent optional) or kill her), she wants to leave because she needs her boyfriend fix. She flat-out admits she was content to wait to be rescued. Quotes would be given, but I can't because it's an ARC. In the end, she still ends up the damsel, being saved by others once again and literally hiding behind her rescuers during the climactic scene. We get some purity myth indoctrination too about being worth less or less lovable if you have sex, but I'm not even getting into that. This review is long enough as it is.

Because Bethie isn't around on Earth to narrate what's going on with them, we have the Lake of Dreams plot device, which allows someone who drinks from it to see what their heart most desires and lets Bethany narrate what's going on elsewhere. Someone told me that it could be used for psychological torture when I thought the Lake of Dreams was ridiculous, and that's a valid point. But why isn't it ever discussed as though it were once or still being used for psychological torture? Then we get another dose of deus ex machina where, if Bethany had just done that earlier in the book, so many pages could have been cut from a book that both is long and feels long.

Adornetto's vision of Hell is hopelessly muddled and contradictory. The world she built in Halo and Hades is heavily rooted in the Bible and Christianity. In those, Hell is a place of punishment not only for the humans that sinned while alive and did not gain or attempt to gain forgiveness, but also for Lucifer and the angels that followed him in his rebellion against God. In Hades, Hell is appropriately hellish in one part of it, where the human souls are tortured, but then there are nightclubs and high-class hotels for the demons, undermining what Hell is all about.

Hades. Is. Not. Hell. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Hades is sometimes used to refer to the Greek Underworld, though it is also the name of the god of the Underworld. All souls, good or bad, went to Hades and were then sorted into afterlives appropriately depending on whether the humans were good or bad while alive. The Christian Hell is a place of punishment for the fallen angels and sinful humans, as stated previously. The two are so radically different that trying to call the Hell within this book Hades is irritating because the two are not interchangeable. The attempts at blending the two into one realm, along with the parallels and allusions to the myth of Persephone, didn't work out.

The writing is still as atrocious as it ever was, maybe even more so in ARC form. There is repetitive description and wording (I will scream the next time I see "I know" in a book because it was used that much in Hades), purple prose, unnecessary description to bog down the pacing and scenes, numerous instances of cheating at narration (Bethany talks about how other characters feel or think when she has no way to know that), and one scene so badly worded that I had to reread it two more times to figure out what happened. The narration-cheating gets significantly worse during segments concentrating on Xavier and co.

But I will give some credit where it is due: Hades is an improvement, however slight I feel it is, on Halo. There was an exorcism scene late in Hades that was somewhat enjoyable and the plot took center stage fairly early in the book; I didn't have to wade through seemingly endless amounts of useless fluff to get to the plot like I did with Halo. Little details such as these weren't anywhere near close enough to countering the many problems within Hades, sadly.

I made the bad decision to read Halo, I made another bad decision to read Hades, but nothing short of having my dreams served to me on a silver platter with no strings attached and no possible way for it to backfire on me will get me to read Heaven. Not even to finish the series. Not even to entertain a few friends. I don't recommend starting this series at all, let alone reading Hades. Now I'm going to go watch two hours of Tokyo Mew Mew because when my brain needs relief, good-cheesy magical girl anime is the solution.

0 stars!

What am I reading next?: The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

H.Y.P.E. Project: Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

Title: Unearthly
Author: Cynthia Hand
Publisher: HarperCollins/HarperTeen
Release Date: January 4, 2011
Pages: 435 pages (hardback)

How I Got the Book: Found a copy for the H.Y.P.E. Project (details here)

 In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . .

Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place—and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make—between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

Unearthly is a moving tale of love and fate, and the struggle between following the rules and following your heart.

Review:

Clara Gardner is a quarter angel, properly called Quartarius, and she has a special purpose she was put on Earth to do. Disorienting visions of a fire and a dark-haired teenage boy it seems she's supposed to rescue take her from California to Jackson Hole, Wyoming after some investigation. The boy, Christian, barely takes notice of her at first and then there's that stupid Tucker, who has way too much fun teasing her. Clara makes friends, discovers more about angel-bloods, and starts to feel conflicted about what she's supposed to do. When the time comes, will she choose to follow the fated path in front of her or make a path of her own?

For the H.Y.P.E. Project, I'm going to shake up my review format a little bit and see how I like it.

Characters

None of the characters are perfect and no one is trying to pass them off as such. Clara was a likable if sometimes self-centered heroine and she made a good narrator. Her mom Margaret was a different story, but I understood why she acted the way she did and wouldn't tell Clara anything. Making me sympathize with a character I don't like really takes skill. Other supporting characters, like love interest Tucker and close friend Angela, had likable personalities too. Christian was a little plain for me and Kay, though she wasn't anywhere close to being a stock character, had some elements of the "mean girl love rival" cliche in her. (And don't think I didn't notice the puntastic names. I did.)

Pacing/Plot

I'll admit that at times, I had to force myself to keep reading because there wasn't much happening. The pacing was slowed down to make some time for development and that wonderful development is enough to make me forgive that flaw. Occasional visions and tidbits of angel-blood information kept me interested, the climax had me glued to my seat, and I did not see that ending coming. The change of making the girl the supernatural creature was nice and the plot itself was somewhat fresh.

Themes/Conflicts

Fate is one idea I love seeing be played with, but I'm a little picky on which books do it well and which books don't. Unearthly did a great job of it, raising the question of whether or not fate can be defied or changed. The tough choice between doing what you're supposed to do and what you want to do was good too, and Clara's conflict with that was played out well. Most of the time, books are overdramatic about it, but not this time. Love triangles are usually really obvious in who the girl is going to get with in the end and have little to no tension. Unearthly delivers here too; the reader can easily understand why she's torn.

Writing

Oh, the writing was lovely! I'm not a fan of present tense (but that's just a minor pet peeve), but it worked here. Descriptions managed to be rich without verging into the territory of purple prose. It even made me laugh! I may get silly and sometimes emotional when reviewing books, but it rarely happens when I'm still reading them. Not only was it good, nonrepetitive writing, but it was enjoyable storytelling too.

Logic

For the most part, the characters' decisions and reactions are perfectly logical and on-target. There wasn't a moment where I wanted to scream at them that they were being an idiot and should have chosen to do this, not that. And I appreciate that someone finally realized that unless they do something unusual, no one cares about new students. The mythology seemed to make sense too, but there was one little thing that bothered me. Why did the angel-bloods have only one purpose? Wouldn't it make more sense and be more efficient for angel-bloods to be given multiple purposes over their lifetime instead of just having one and being done? It seems so inefficient to have to bring another angel-blood into existence just to do one thing.

Was it worth the hype?

I'm glad to say that yes, Unearthly is worth its hype. The angel/fallen angel subgenre is notorious for offering some of the worst paranormal books I've ever seen published, but Unearthly has honestly earned its reputation it has as the best of the angel books. Coming from me, someone who ardently hates almost all books that have to do with angels and fallen angels, I hope my word means something. Now I actually have some hope for the subgenre--not much hope, but a little is better than none.

Bonus cover section

I'm not over-the-moon in love with the cover, but whoever put it together did a fantastic job. I would steal that model's dress in a heartbeat and her pose is perfect. The choice to make the background purple really makes the beautiful white font stand out, and it all blends together so well!

4 stars! What a wonderful way to start off what I'm sure will be a hellish project for me! This was the book I had the highest expectations for and it delivered.

What am I reading next?: Halo by Alexandra Adornetto (This is not going to be fun.)