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

Switched by Amanda Hocking

Title: Switched
Author: Amanda Hocking
Publisher: Macmillan/St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: January 3, 2012
Pages: 318 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it in a used bookstore

When Wendy Everly was six years old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her. Eleven years later, Wendy discovers her mother might have been right. She’s not the person she’s always believed herself to be, and her whole life begins to unravel—all because of Finn Holmes.

Finn is a mysterious guy who always seems to be watching her. Every encounter leaves her deeply shaken…though it has more to do with her fierce attraction to him than she’d ever admit. But it isn’t long before he reveals the truth: Wendy is a changeling who was switched at birth—and he’s come to take her home.

Now Wendy’s about to journey to a magical world she never knew existed, one that’s both beautiful and frightening. And where she must leave her old life behind to discover who she’s meant to become…

Review:

I just got trolled.

Yes, this is a paranormal romance about trolls, so technically, anyone that reads this book is getting trolled the way someone reading a vampire book gets vampired. That's not the kind of trolled I'm talking about. This kind is:

Not my best work, sadly. The better version of this was tragically lost.

The only reason I remotely enjoyed this book was because I superimposed Internet troll faces onto all the Tryelle/trolls much like I did in the image. That made Switched an unusually hilarious read and it gets an extra star for that, but when taken seriously on its own merit, this book is terrible. Maybe you'll like it if you're into unconvincing paranormal romances and don't mind if those "oh my God, I just discovered I'm royalty" stories like The Princess Diaries get mixed in.

For all the things readers are told Wendy is, the only quality I can really see in her is that she is bratty. She's supposed to care a lot about her human family, right? Then why does she so easily forget them once she among the other Tryelle? I can't remember anything about the other characters either despite all the tell-don't-show characterization. Finn's role could have been better played by a cactus. At least it has living, working cells. That's more than Finn, who is pretty much a piece of cardboard with the ability to speak, can say.

The second half of the novel takes a turn for the sickeningly vapid as details of the extravagance of the Tryelle royal palace take over and go down to the royal iPod (and yes, there is a royal iPod). It may be a princess book and such details are to be expected to some degree, but it was overblown in Switched. Time spent on talking about how wonderful and perfect the palace was and what Wendy's princess lessons were like could have been used to develop characters that desperately needed development and advance a plot that was hardly there.

No one tells Wendy anything and it frustrates me considering everything they keep from her is something she actually needs to know if she is going to do what everyone says she will. There is no intrigue that justifies keeping secrets from her; this is her mother and the two men she interacts with most flat-out starving her of necessary information. How can they expect her to became a just ruler if she has no idea how her kingdom works and who is in it? Secrets are one way to drum up conflict, but it gets downright idiotic if there is no good reason to keep the secrets.

In that vein, why does this book have to follow the misogynistic systems of human monarchies? According to the book, the female Tryelle develop powers more often than the men do (or something like that). Would this and the Tryelle being a completely separate race from humans not be perfectly good reasons to write a more female-friendly monarchy? That would get rid of the eternally stupid problem of royals indoctrinating princesses on what they can't do because it would make them ~impure. Why does Finn get final approval on Wendy's dress? What about Wendy?

I'm just glad it's over. I gave Hocking novels a fair second shot (my first shot was My Blood Approves and I made it exactly one chapter) like I wanted to and now I'm washing my hands of her books now and (hopefully) forevermore. My best friend wants to read this after me and I'm tempted to refuse to give it to her. You don't want this, Kayla! You don't want this.

In case anyone is curious about my thoughts on yaoi Amanda Hocking, this is the only time I will say it and fully expand on it. If you don't care, pretend the review ends in the paragraph above this.

Amanda Hocking is a fantastic businesswoman worthy of my respect.

Amanda Hocking is a terrible author not worth my respect.

At any given point in time, there are two kinds of trends in publishing: the buying trend and the selling trend. The buying trend has to do with the kinds of novels being bought by a publisher so they can be refined any published a year and a half later, sometimes longer; the selling trend is what is already published, on the shelves, and selling well. Back a few years ago, the selling trend was vampire novels thanks to Twilight and meanwhile, the buying trend was dystopian novels. That is why we've seen a switch to dystopian novels as the selling trend.

Like I said, it can be a year and a half between the purchase of a novel by the publisher and final publication. Hocking can produce a first draft in two to four weeks and likely has a final draft a month later. This means she can bypass the long process of a buying trend becoming a selling trend and can cash in on what the selling trend now is while preparing for what comes next, enabling her to make money quickly.

With the takeoff of the ebook industry, consumers want inexpensive books to fill their Kindles and Nooks with and self-published authors can fulfill that need. Hocking's stories are inexpensive, superficially satisfying quick fixes and these are exactly the kinds of books that wildly succeed in the ebook market. She really couldn't have chosen a better market, and this is why she is a millionaire with a seven-figure deal with a major publisher for seven books, four of them brand-new. This entrepreneurship is beyond admirable.

But where is the passion? Never once during Switched did I feel like there was any passion in the story being told. It feels exactly like what it is: an unoriginal novel charged with just enough originality shot in to satisfy most readers, written and published just to make money off current trends in YA. This is why I despise Amanda Hocking the author. There are plenty of copycat novels around, but at least those have some passion in them somewhere, something Switched never had for even a moment.

But what do I know? Switched has spent nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. That must mean she's doing something right--and she is. I respect her when viewing her as an incredibly successful businesswoman who has made herself a millionaire through her methods. When viewing her as an author who latches onto trends and publishes sub-par, superficially satisfying novels for the sake of profit, she disgusts me. You will never be able to convince me she feels passionate about her books.

And those are my thoughts on Amanda Hocking. /steps off soapbox

1 star!

What am I reading next?: Angelfall by Susan Ee

A Beautiful Dark by Jocelyn Davies

200th post! Woohoo!

Title: A Beautiful Dark
Author: Jocelyn Davies
Publisher: HarperCollins/HarperTeen
Release Date: September 27, 2011
Pages: 390 pages (hardcover)


On the night of Skye's seventeenth birthday, she meets two enigmatic strangers. Complete opposites;like fire and ice;Asher is dark and wild, while Devin is fair and aloof. Their sudden appearance sends Skye's life into a tailspin. She has no idea what they want, or why they seem to follow her every move only that their presence coincides with a flurry of strange events. Soon she begins to doubt not just the identity of the two boys, but also the truth about her own past.

In the dead of a bitingly cold Colorado winter, Skye finds herself coming to terms with the impossible secret that threatens to shatter her world. Torn between Asher, who she can't help falling for, and Devin, who she can't stay away from, the consequences of Skye's choice will reach further than the three of them could ever imagine.

Review:

Once upon a time, there was an idea, A Beautiful Dark, and me.

See, I like to write too. I want to be published one day, and one of the many ideas I've had (but have not yet had the chance to pursue) went like this: an agent of good, an agent of evil, and the high school girl they're trying to win over to their side of an ancient war. Only good is also evil, evil is still evil (but sympathetic), and the high school girl will take no bull from either of them. She won't waste her time with anyone who don't give her the respect than she deserves and would rather die than be forced to join the war on either side against her will--and does, actually.

It sounds like a lot of YA these days, right? But A Beautiful Dark in particular seemed to come close to what I had planned. I don't want to be a plagiarist or a copycat (and despite what the success of one author might tell you, being a plagiarist or a copycat does not get you anywhere), so I resolved to read this book despite knowing I wouldn't like it very much. I don't always read bad books for snark, you know. It's occasionally for a pseudo-educational purpose.

And lo and behold, my instincts and were right. I did not like this book, but it gave me some food for thought and a greater sense of direction with my own story. I'll have to make a few changes because they're more similar than I would like them to be, but it will inevitably improve my story so it doesn't end up being as bad as A Beautiful Dark.

In equal parts, Sky drove me nuts and earned my pity. On the drove-me-nuts side, she was inconsistently characterized and I couldn't get a good handle on her. In a single chapter, she does from "I vowed to avoid [Asher and Devin] as much as possible" to "If I kissed [Asher] right now, he'd taste like mint" to (when Asher asks her on a date) "[Meeting my friends] was the truth, but it felt like I was making up an excuse somehow."

But Skye wants to go to Columbia! Fantastic! Aspiring for admission to such a college is a quality I like in heroines. Tell me, what does she want as a career? What is her planned major? How much has it influenced who she is?

Hello? Anyone?

Exactly. It's called characterization. Readers could have gotten a deeper sense of who Skye was with that kind of detail, but a half-baked attempt like this only makes the book worse. Books like A Beautiful Dark that make half-baked attempts at characterization like that (it seems so obvious the detail was shoved in at the last minute so the book wouldn't be called anti-feminist) make me angrier than books that don't try at all. This isn't the only book to try such a trick. It's more like the fifth I've read in recent memory.

Devin and Asher were not well-developed as love interests or as characters. Skye knows their pursuit of her has nothing to do with wanting her affection--in fact, she brings this up multiple times. So why is she attracted to them? Why does she tolerate their attentions and agonize over whether or not she likes them when they aren't worth a second of her time? They aren't worth her time. Skye should have the self-respect to recognize she deserves more than lies and games of hot-and-cold. Every woman does.

Do we really teach young women should tolerate and even encourage someone's pursuit of them even if she knows it's a farce? We're in 2012, not 1889. Why do we still teach them to disrespect themselves like this when it's wrong on multiple levels? I was practically on my knees begging Skye to have some self-respect and tell them to piss off until their pursuit became more about her than each other, but she never did. I thought she would after demonstrating the presence of a working brain, but it appears only a miniscule piece of that brain actually worked. This is why I pity her.

This book doesn't have enough action to be plot-driven or enough deep characterization to be character-driven, so what drives the book? Nothing. It's a plotless piece of fluff. Only read it if you absolutely love love triangles. Again, ONLY READ IT IF YOU ABSOLUTELY LOVE LOVE TRIANGLES. You will not like it otherwise. Writing is blah, supporting characters are blah, and everything about this book is just. So. Blah.

In terms of enjoyment, it gets one star, but it earns a star back because it was useful. I have a clearer idea of what I want to do. For one thing, my heroine is going to have enough self-respect to tell her suitors to piss off when she figures out they're not actually fighting over her, just what she can do. A girl is worth more than that kind of treatment. For another, she's not going to flip-flop about how she feels multiple times in one chapter. Books like A Beautiful Dark make me weary of YA and our society, but they teach me so many things. I suppose I can be thankful for that much.

2 stars!

What am I reading next?: Hanging by a Thread by Sophie Littlefield

H.Y.P.E. Project: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books
Release Date: May 3, 2011
Pages: 487 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it for the H.Y.P.E. Project (details here)

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself. 

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves… or it might destroy her.

Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the literary scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.

Review:

Characters

Hands-down, Tris was the best part of the book. Her fantastic character development as the switch from Abnegation to Dauntless changed her in some ways and left her untouched in others is the kind of stuff I want to see in every book, not every few months in rare books. When the boys took her to the Pit to scare her, I felt fiercely angry for her and hoped the boys would get their just desserts eventually. The other characters were so pale next to her, people colored with just twelve crayons instead of two-hundred fifty-six like Tris.

It dampened my buzz a little every time I remembered there isn't anything truly extraordinary about Tris, though. Objectively, she is unusual because she is the average human being thrown into a sea of people wired like robots instead of human beings. Is that the best way for her to stand out? Because she is the only normal one in a crowd of abnormal people (and they are only abnormal because they are not written the way they should be)? Tris deserves better than that.

Really, characters other than Tris (and possibly other Divergents) just don't form connections to their families and have no issues with dropping them if they leave for another faction? Are there drugs in the water? That isn't the way a human being works. Humans are social animals and form deep connections with friends and family. Being able to sever those connections as easily as everyone apparently does in the world of Divergent? That doesn't happen very often.

Plot/Pacing

This was largely what I heard about Divergent prior to reading it: It's so exciting that it will make you want to pee your pants and you'll be glued to the book from the first page to the last.

Well? Where was the excitement for most of the novel?

The last eighty pages did catch my attention and kept me reading when I had other work to do.The four hundred pages before that were a very different story. Jumping in and out of trains to get around isn't exciting to me; it's stupid, as demonstrated when a Dauntless girl died leaping out of a train. Really, when only ten new members are allowed into Dauntless per year, they need to keep all the people alive that they can. Until Tris started navigating her fear landscape near page four-hundred, I could easily put the book down.

Moreover, it didn't take me thirty seconds to figure out what was going to go down, who was involved in the evil plot, and how they were going to do it. The hints had spotlights on them and such pains were gone to so Tris (and the reader by extension) would know what the big deal about being Divergent was that it gave everything away. So I suppose Divergent is decently plotted, but it is painfully transparent in its execution. I don't like waiting one-hundred fifty pages for the villains to reveal themselves when I've been aware of them the entire time.

Themes/Conflicts

I have little to say here. The points about what courage means (doing something even though you are afraid) are valid and everything Tris had to go through to figure them out was great character development for her. The conflict between the Dauntless initiates was well-drawn considering exactly where they were and what would happen if they didn't make it in.

Writing

The writing was nothing outstanding in terms of its stylistic choices and descriptions, but it never distracted from Tris' trials or what was going on and worked well with the kind of story being told. If I had to make a clear verdict (and I do), I would say the writing is great. Not poetic-great or I'll-remember-it-forever great, but a writing style so smooth that you never need to stop and consider a bad description or watch the atmosphere fall apart because of a disastrous choice of words is respectable.

Logic

I'm sorry, what?

(I really don't use GIFs often, but this about sums up my feelings about the logic of Divergent... and it involves a kitten. Leave me alone.)

What happened to Chicago? How did this deeply flawed society develop? How did it not fall apart ages ago? Why did anyone think the faction system was going to prevent war when history has shown time and time again that creating deep divisions between people like the faction system does will lead to war? The prejudice the Erudite had against the Abnegation demonstrates exactly this. Also, what kind of government would let large numbers of the factionless stay around, become bitter at the system for its highly unfair processes and its inability to give everyone a fair go, and possibly plot their own revolution? It looks like you're pretty much done for life once you're declared factionless. Because of that, I'm surprised and a little disappointed the factionless played no real part in the novel..

Stick around for the sequels, some of you might say to me. That's what sequels are for: expanding on the first book. Why should I get the sequel? Tell me. Why should I? The first book of a series is supposed to hook me for sequels and Divergent failed to do so. Too many questions are left unanswered or with hints at an unsatisfying answer and I did not like the book overall. I highly doubt paying $17.99 for Insurgent when it comes out and spending several days reading it will be a worthwhile investment of my time and money.

Was it worth the hype?

Not at all. For all the good word I've heard, for all the time my friends have spent talking it up, and for all the accolades it's getting, I don't see what the big deal about Divergent is. So many questions are left unanswered, but I lack the motivation to keep an eye out for Insurgent when it comes out in about three months.

Bonus cover section

I envy the abilities of the person who made this cover. As I've learned in the past year and a half, digital design is not easy and the cover, down to the details of each and every little flame of the Dauntless symbol, looks flawless. Great focus, understated fonts--I would love to be able to create something like this some day instead of turning green over someone else's ability to do it.

2 stars! (But I would put it closer to 2.5 stars.)

What am I reading next?: Embrace by Jessica Shirvington

H.Y.P.E. Project: Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

Title: Nightshade
Author: Andrea Cremer
Publisher: Penguin/Philomel
Release Date: October 19, 2010 (hardcover)/June 28, 2011 (paperback)
Pages: 452 pages (hardcover)/454 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it for the H.Y.P.E. Project (details here)

Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she'll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters' laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything- including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?

Review:

Alpha female Calla Tor knows what is expected of her: to remain chaste until her eighteenth birthday, when she will mate with the other wolf pack's alpha male Ren and rule the new pack together. Then she goes out on day and saves Shay Doran from death for a reason she can't explain. A few days later, Shay starts at her school and the Keepers who dictate what she and the other Guardians do say to keep Shay safe. What is the purpose of this human boy staying with the Keepers? And why can't she stop wanting him to touch her when she is supposed to be another? Questioning what she thought was her destiny could cost her everything if she makes the wrong choice.

Characters

My first impression of Calla came when she thought "wow, he's hot" (paraphrased) of Shay when he was on the ground writhing in pain. This surely should have warned me of what was to come. Calla's inability to get her hormones under control drove me batty. Feeling desire is good. Controlling your desire is good. Letting your desire dictate your every action is imbecilic. Having makeout breaks when it is not a good time to do so is borderline TSTL. "Oh my God, we just [plot event from Nightshade]! What do we do now?" "Make out and pin each other down!" It felt like seeing Red Riding Hood all over again.

Ren and Shay are just as disrespectful of women and overall disgusting. Ren's attitude of "sure, I dated all these other girls, but I'm all about you now, Lily!" is unrealistic; guys who act like that are never really going to be "all about" the girl they say it too. I think readers are supposed to prefer Shay or at least see what Calla sees in him, but when he calls girls gum-snapping bimbos, I'm more inclined to hit him than kiss him. Shay's insta-love connection with Calla did not get developed and only became more annoying with each page.

Plot/Pacing

I saw two sources of plot in this novel: Calla's indecision about Ren and Shay and the slow unraveling of the truth about the Keepers and Guardians. The former felt forced and her indecision got old very quickly. The latter was well-done, if predictable; in fact, most of the novel was predictable, especially Shay's role. The pacing of the novel was more impressive. It only took me three days to read, though I did end up throwing it a few times after reaching a boiling point in my frustration. After breaks lasting anywhere from five to twenty minutes, I got back to reading.

Themes/Conflicts

A very intelligent friend of mine said she read the book as a sexist dystopia of sorts and the deeply misogynistic dynamic of the packs had a purpose as both a message and a source of conflict. I did see how Nightshade can be read in such a way, but I could not continue reading like that because the messages the society was trying to get across (double standards, slut shaming, and general sexism are horrible) were continually being undermined. One such way it is undermined is detailed  under Logic, and the second way is how no such gender conflict was shown between female Keeper Lumine and male Keeper Efron. Are all feminist texts banned there? Do the female Guardians not look Lumine and Efron and wonder why they can't be equal to male Guardians the same way?

With the main conflict being Calla's feelings for Ren and Shay, there didn't seem to be a lot of interesting conflict. I've already made my feelings about that very clear. I wasn't a fan of the way the narrative showed a distaste for feminine things like skirts either. Feminine =/= weak. Then again, according to this book, it pretty much does. Giving Calla a position of power and continually subverting her and having her defer to men she doesn't need to defer to was just cruel.

Writing

Unremarkable for the most part, but it had two particularly bad moments that stick out in my mind. The first was on page 131: "The muscles in [Bryn's] jaw jumped about in a furious dance." Personally, I thought the muscles were doing a drunken tango for their lives. The other time was on page 231, when Calla couldn't stop staring at "the velvet darkness of [Shay's] irises." I could swear I've read a description exactly like that before, but it was in a vampire fic posted online and written by a thirteen-year-old girl during her first attempt at writing. Lazy storytelling in how there are two back-to-back chapters of info-dumping did not help.

Logic

So Calla is slowly breaking away from a society that disrespects her so she can have the free will to be with... a guy who disrespects her? Shay is supposed to represent the freedom to make one's own choices, but he is no less disrespectful than Ren and she defers to both just as easily. Not only does this undermine the the message the book is trying to get across, but it makes her look stupid because the book is about little else than her meebling about which boy to be with. After she brushed off the bite of a giant guard-spider until it nearly killed her, she needed no help in that department.

Was it worth the hype?

No. Just no. I heard this was a book with a strong heroine and a well-done mythos. The "strong heroine" conversation is a long, complicated one where everyone says something different, but I do not feel Calla is a good heroine or a strong one. I do agree about the mythos being well-done, but it is not given the attention it deserves.

Bonus cover section

This is probably my favorite part of the book. I have the hardcover edition and the cover model vaguely reminds me of my goddess Ke$ha.

2 stars!

What am I reading next?: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Watched by Sharde Richardson

Title: Watched
Author: Sharde Richardson
Publisher: Jolt Books
Release Date: May 30, 2011
Pages: 278 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.

Mikayla doesn't want much: just to rock out to her favorite band, become the next Kwiki Stop video gaming champion, and keep her Q-tip habit under control. What she does want is the sight of the sudden and inexplicable dark auras around everyone to stop. Problem is, those auras are demons and Mikayla is the last trait holder with the power to ban them. Which is a total buzz kill.

To make matters worse, the town folk of Sulphur Springs don't look the same, and her classmates are a little dark in the eyes. There are murders, suicides, reckless skinny-dipping, gratuitous use of Q-tips, and newfound powers that Mikayla must learn to control.

Her past becomes present when a shape-shifter tells her what her true identity is, and how to keep the demons of hell form nipping at her Converse. Through him she'll discover who to trust, who to kiss, and how valuable her abilities are to the right beings. Because the evils of Hell aren't staying down without a fight...

Or without her soul.

Review:

Getting shot on what she thinks is her seventeenth birthday is the last thing Mikayla expects. She's just the average teenage girl--okay, maybe sticking Q-tips up her nose to make herself sneeze and not being able to remember anything from before she was thirteen isn't normal, but she is who she is. After she wakes up in the hospital for the second time in her life, she suddenly finds herself capable of seeing auras. According to Lucas, who says he is the Sentry meant to serve her, these auras are demons and Mikayla has to stop them. It's going to take a lot of skill and a lot of Q-tips.

Oh wow. And when I say that, I really mean oh wow. It's really such a shame Watched turned out like this. I expected the best and I got what is doubtlessly some of the worst I've ever read. It was even getting vaguely intriguing when I stopped reading as some of the worldbuilding kicked in, but I was so disgusted and upset by that point that I refused to keep going.

We will start with Mikayla's attitude toward the suicide of a fellow student, a quiet girl named Sidney Smaw. On Mikayla's birthday, the same day Mikayla is shot by what turns out to be a demon, Sidney hangs herself in her basement, and Mikayla sees a news report about a vigil for Sidney while laying in bad at the hospital. This is what the main character has to say:

"The anchor's voice rose over the soft wailing of the piano in the background. She didn't leave a note. She didn't say goodbye. She died on my birthday. I didn't know why yet, but I was pissed. The camera man panned over the faces again--some crying, others sniffling, most blank. Sidney Smaw, for whatever reason, killed herself. I wanted to scream at the TV. Wanted to toss F-bombs all over the place.

"But not for her.

"I wasn't the type of person who gave two flips about rules, but she broke the big one, you know. Sidney Smaw copped out. And they mourned her. All I could think about was my birthday, my skin burning instead of seventeen candles, the smell, the shooter--my shooter. How nothing mattered except to stop the world from turning, to stop time long enough to escape the bullets, to escape him. To forget. On that day--the day I begged to live--Sidney freaggin' Smaw handed her life over like lunch money.

"So why the hell were they crying for her? (Watched, p. 30)"

Has anyone heard of Phoebe Prince? After months of being bullied, reportedly because of her Irish accent and brief relationships she had with a senior football player and another male, she died by hanging herself in a stairwell leading up to the second story of her apartment on January 14, 2010. Her twelve-year-old sister discovered her body later that day. Phoebe was only fifteen. Six teens at her school were indicted on felony charges including assault with a deadly weapon, statutory rape, violation of civil rights, criminal harassment, disturbance of a school assembly, stalking, and additional delinquency complaints against three defendants, all of them female minors related to what their bullying of Phoebe. In May 2011, all six were sentenced to probation and community service after pleading guilty to lesser charges.

Yes, something terrible happened to Mikayla. This does not give her the right to play the victim when she has no idea what might have been going on in Sidney's life and what led her to that decision. For all Mikayla knows, Sidney was bullied just as badly as poor Phoebe Prince. I have never, never, never seen a book handle such a delicate subject as teen suicide handled so poorly and with such insensitivity. Sure, Mikayla might just be angry, but anger tends to bring out our true feelings on a subject. How can I be sure that isn't the case here?

Later on, it comes to light that some demons get out of the Nether Legion when people commit suicide. The demon that shot Mikayla wouldn't have gotten out when it did if Sidney hadn't killed herself when she did, so the blame for Mikayla being attacked indirectly falls on Sidney. "If she weren't so weak... Her copout let them in--the demons, (Watched, p. 84)" says Mikayla. I need no words. This speaks for itself.

On page 96, Mikayla finally takes the time to reflect on Sidney's suicide. "Maybe she wasn't such a copout after all. Maybe she had a little nudge in the wrong direction from a Somber [a demon specializing in suicide]." Too little too late. That was not enough to placate me because I got the distinct vibe that "they're being copouts" is what she really thought about people who killed themselves, and she would have kept on thinking that about Sidney's death if she didn't learn about demons. When the book is indirectly putting Sidney at fault for what happened to Mikayla, it nearly cancels out any reflections of "wow, that was horrible of me to think that."

Next is large problem number two: the slut shaming. Anyone that knows me and my taste in novels knows I hate it when girls are called sluts, shaming them for daring to be sexual or act in the way the person calling them that name doesn't like. Mikayla? Oh, she loves calling people sluts both indirectly and directly, and this is yet another reason I can't stand her or this novel.

There are two types of girls presented: the Tara Dandeaus, or the girls that have a lot of sex (said character is described as "one of those freaky/my dad was a preacher/I let guys motorboat/have secret F-150 sex kind of girls (Watched, p. 63)," and the Mikaylas, hot commodities because they are virgins are so hungry for because they're "unexplored territory." The boys are all sex-hungry for those lovely virgins they haven't yet explored. A new girl named Bianca comes to school and quickly settles in hanging out with the jocks, and Mikayla calls her a mattress. You know, because so many people are laying (on) her? Clever? Yeah right. Try revolting. Double standards, virgin/whore dichotomy--it's all here.

And the girl who dares to act sexually toward her fiance (called her "betrothed" in the novel, but it's the same thing)? She's a slut too--a slut puppy, as Mikayla calls her. Yeah. So whether or not you're in a relationship with someone, you're sluts for being sexual, ladies. (News flash: WRONG. So many levels of wrong there that I can't wade through it all.)

So the larger problems are out of the way. I had plenty of small problems too.

I was under the impression when I paid for the novel that I would be paying for the final copy of the novel, not an error-riddled first draft. I rarely count typos against a novel because no one's perfect; typos happen and occasionally, one or two will sneak through all the editing stages and make it into the final novel. This time, there were so many errors and they were in such basic areas as possessives that it ultimately distracted me from the novel and made for a worse experience, so I will count it this time. Books like this are why I am the Screaming Nitpicker.

Watched tried so hard to make Mikayla sound like a normal teenager, and some of the phrases she utters have come from teens I know (like noobs and someone's blood being made of win (Mikayla says this exact phrase on page 145)). The problem is that teens that talk like that annoy the living daylights out of me whether the person saying it is fictional or real and I'm not the only one that feels that way. In trying to make Mikayla realistic, she becomes as irritating as the itch within your cast that you can't scratch.

Oh, and this might bother some people, but not me. I'm only taking the time to mention it because I know it turns off many readers. Mikayla is a pottymouth--a really bad one, too. I don't worry about how much characters curse because I still curse more than most of them on a daily basis, but not everyone is like me in that respect. If cursing-heavy characters or novels irritate someone, this will not be their book.

So maybe you understand why I'm angry now and why this novel upset me so much. I might have phrased this a different way, but it was either do this and let all that nasty anger fester inside of me. I'm selfish, so I chose to take my anger out on the book instead of letting my anger run rampant through my system.

In case you're angry too and need to calm down or if you just need something to do, I suggest watching the Let's Play videos by Mangaminx. In case you have no idea what they are, Let's Play videos (LPs) are videos in which people play video games and make commentary while doing so. I don't watch many LPs--in fact, Mangaminx's are the only ones I watch--and she is often hilarious while scaring the pants off herself with horror games. I personally recommend watching her LPs of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Even when you're just watching it all unfold on video, the game is so atmospheric. You'll be so terrified soon enough that you'll forget about being angry, especially once you get to all the parts featuring Mr. Face.

This one is a big fat DNF. I'm not going to waste my time on a book that makes me angrier with each page. I've had enough of the conflicting arguments of "Why did you finish the book if you didn't like it?" and "Why should your review mean anything when you didn't finish the book?" so anyone who wants to use either one can kindly not comment. You will get no response and your comment will be deleted.

What am I reading next?: Lily of the Nile by Stephanie Dray

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

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

H.Y.P.E. Project: Halo by Alexandra Adornetto

Title: Halo
Author: Alexandra Adornetto
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: August 31, 2010
Pages: 496 pages (hardback)

How I Got the Book: Got it on my Kindle for the H.Y.P.E. Project (details here)

Nothing much happens in the sleepy town of Venus Cove. But everything changes when three angels are sent from Heaven to protect the town against the gathering forces of darkness: Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, a teenage girl who is the least experienced of the trio. They work hard to conceal their true identity and, most of all, their wings.

But the mission is threatened when the youngest angel, Bethany, is sent to high school and falls in love with the handsome school captain, Xavier Woods. Will she defy the laws of Heaven by loving him? Things come to a head when the angels realize they are not the only supernatural power in Venus Cove. There′s a new kid in town and he′s charming, seductive and deadly. Worst of all, he′s after Beth.

Review:

It is suspected that the town of Venus Cove is under attack by Agents of Darkness, so three angels are sent to the town in order to help the people regain their faith and become closer to God: warrior archangel Gabriel, healer Ivy, and Bethany, an angel only seventeen years old in mortal years. They're not supposed to get too close to the humans while on their mission, but Bethany immediately falls head over heels in love with Xavier Woods. Their relationship is not without its obstacles, including the objection of Bethany's angel siblings and the arrival of a strange new student from Great Britain named Jake Thorn who wants Bethany.

Characters

The characters in this book lack any depth and it would be more accurate to call them caricatures. The angels lack any personality; in-book, Bethany says that angels have no need to develop humans personalities because of what they are, but this excuse doesn't work because characters, angels or no, need personalities to make a good novel. (I would cite this quote exactly, but I am unable to due to reading it on a Kindle.) Xavier and Bethany's relationship is no sort of love anyone would call healthy; at best, it's an unhealthy infatuation between teenagers and at worst, it's obsession.

Every human character besides Xavier is made out to be shallow; boys only want to get in girls' pants and girls talk about nothing but prom. As anyone who knows real teenagers would know, real teens are nowhere near this shallow. It seems like they're all portrayed so shallowly and placed around Bethany to make her look better, but the trick doesn't work. Even Jake Thorn, the antagonist, was just a bunch of cliches thrown together instead of anything halfway memorable or remarkable.

Pacing/Plot

The plot was nonexistent until about the last fourth of the novel, when the antagonist Jake Thorn (whom Adornetto goes through pains to make obvious as the antagonist with passages far too heavy in foreshadowing) stepped up his game. Before then, it had been all about Bethany and Xavier becoming infatuated in one another. Neither of the characters are interesting enough to make the first three-fourths of the novel character-driven and the pacing suffers for it.

Themes/Conflicts

Feminists should stay away from this book at all costs. Many of the themes and messages within Halo carry a heavy antifeminist slant and it's not easy to ignore or avoid while reading. When many of these themes came around, it felt like I was being preached to by the author, and I didn't enjoy that at all. To start with (all of this is according to the book, not me; I don't believe in any of this), Christianity is the only way. The mistakes of a young woman reflect badly on the reputation of her entire family. A young woman is not responsible for her own mistakes because the man of the family takes them on as his own mistakes. You should judge a person by how they look because if they wear Gothic clothes, they are either evil or under the control of evil.

Throughout the entire book, women are very passive and it's always the men that take the first step or fight the big battles. The women are always the ones in need of saving. Even the dog refuses to sit when a female tells him so and then immediately sits when a male tells him so. This book is supposed to take place in the twenty-first century, and all these outdated values and blatant displays of sexism deserve no place here.

Conflict? There was none. Bethany and Xavier's relationship never faced anything I thought was a threat for even a second; I always knew they would just go around it or ignore what they were told to do so they could be together. The battle of good vs. evil didn't happen until the last ten percent of the novel and even that climactic scene lacked any tension or true conflict. To demonstrate, the following song was stuck in my head throughout the climax:

(What can I say? Sailor Moon will always have a special place in my heart, and this song fit the climactic scene too perfectly not to tell the world about it.)

Writing

Halo's writing was amateur at best and at worst...I really don't know what to say about it when it was at its worst. So much description could have been cut from this book without negatively impacting the reading experience--actually, cutting even half of the overly purple prose, unnecessary description, and just plain outlandish description would have made for a significant improvement. I'll just drop a few quotes here that I found while reading. They should say enough. Once again, I'm unable to cite page numbers due to reading it on my Kindle.

"Gabriel turned to look at me, his eyes the color of thunder."

"That was the effect he had on me--an explosion of happiness in my chest, scattering like little beads and making my whole body shiver and tingle."

And finally, the quote that has made many a feminist reader angry, one that definitely shouldn't have made it into the final copy. I take offense to this too and nothing I can say hasn't already been said:

"For the evening at least, feminist philosophy had been abandoned, and the girls, like fairy-tale princesses, allowed themselves to be led up the flight of steps and into the foyer."

Logic Only a select few books have ever made less sense. If my Christian mythology is correct, God has thrown angels out of Heaven and made them fallen angels before for putting anything, from love to their own selves, above God and their duty as angels. Bethany did just this, but she was not and never becomes a fallen angel. Angels are supposed to possess all human knowledge, but Bethany has no idea how to use a tube of lip gloss, and that's human knowledge too, albeit a different kind. It doesn't stop there. Where does a demon from Hell get a British accent from? Who brings a human who can easily get killed to a battle between a warrior angel and a demon? If Xavier is so in love with Bethany, why is he so unwilling to let her give her side of the story about what happened on prom night? Didn't the author know that an inverted pentagram (which is worn around Jake's neck at one point) is a pentacle, which is a symbol of good and white magic instead of black magic like she likely meant it to be? I could still go on. As I said, only a select few books have ever made less sense. Was it worth the hype? Admittedly, all the hype I heard for this book was negative. This is one of the worst books I've ever read, many friends said, and you should never read it if you value your sanity. Can it be helped that I got curious? But now that I've read it, I have to agree with them. It lived up to its negative hype and exceeded it. The one nice thing I heard was the the cover was lovely and in that respect, it also lived up to the hype. Bonus cover section The cover, I admit, is beautiful. The models' poses and the sun shining through creates a striking effect. Such a lovely cover is part of why Halo had so much hype. When beautiful covers like this are made, word gets around and people want to see if what's between the covers is as good. Some say that good covers often hide bad stories; in this case, I agree. Lovely covers do not a good book make. 0 stars! Halo was as bad as I'd heard it was and then some.

What am I reading next?: Chime by Franny Billingsley

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Title: Beauty QueensAuthor: Libba Bray
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc./Scholastic Press
Release Date: May 24th, 2011
Pages: 400 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Amazon Vine

The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner.

What's a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program--or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan--or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up?

Welcome to the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Your tour guide? None other than Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.

Review:

After their Corporation plane crashes on a desert island, the fourteen surviving beauty queens of the Corporation-sponsored Miss Teen Dream beauty pageant must fend for themselves and find a way to either make a home out of the island or be rescued. Between their clashes and practicing for the pageant, they come to rely on one another and discover themselves now that they're away from the pressures put on them by society and even their own families. But just beyond the forest, there is a Corporation compound planning an illegal arms deal with a dictator. These women aren't going down without a fight once they're discovered and plan to save the day, along with get the hell off that island.

When I read this just over a month ago, I loved it. Hell, I was over the MOON for it. After time to think about it, I fell out of love with this book. It isn't as great as I first thought it was and it would be a travesty if I didn't correct myself and make my true opinion known. Looking back at my old review, I'm wondering why I felt the way I did and I'm left without answers. My old review feels kind of... well, forced. Like I was blinded by the hype and forcing myself to say it because I just couldn't imagine not liking it.

There were a few funny points, but this satire wasn't as funny as I thought it was. The characters, starting out as stereotypes, all got their moment of depth but none of the moments were very well. The messages of female empowerment, that women and diversity should be celebrated and people should accept themselves as they are, are awesome, but they're not presented well. It's more like they're preached at me.

Preachy. Yeah, that's the one word I would use to describe this book. All of the values and ideas felt like they were being preached and thrown at me, not smoothly woven into the story. I support and believe in all that stuff already, so there's no need to preach it all to me. The magic of satire is that it makes people think about the subject, right? With Beauty Queens, all the ideas are presented to you and the reader doesn't have to think. The magic of it goes out just like that.

What wins the book for me even a little bit is that I did have soft spots for three of the characters (Adina, Petra, and Shanti) and that I liked most of the footnotes in the book. The ideas are great, but the way they're presented isn't.

In the end, Beauty Queens now leaves me speechless, and not in the way people want to be left speechless. This review itself is an example because this has to be one of the shortest reviews I've ever written. There's not much I can say or go in-depth about. (Also, I'm trying to cut down on my babbling.)

2 stars!

What am I reading next?: Chime by Franny Billingsley

Fury by Elizabeth Miles

This review contains spoilers for the entirety of Fury. If you don't want to ruin the book for yourself, skip this review.

Title: Fury
Author: Elizabeth Miles
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse
Release Date: August 30, 2011
Pages: 352 pages (hardback)
How I Got the Book: Simon & Schuster Galley Grab

The first book in a paranormal teen trilogy featuring three beautiful, mysterious girls wreaking havoc on a small New England town.

Sometimes sorry isn't enough....

It’s winter break in Ascension, Maine. The snow is falling and everything looks pristine and peaceful. But not all is as it seems...

Between cozy traditions and parties with her friends, Emily loves the holidays. And this year’s even better--the guy she’s been into for months is finally noticing her. But Em knows if she starts things with him, there’s no turning back. Because his girlfriend is Em’s best friend.

On the other side of town, Chase is having problems of his own. The stress of his home life is starting to take its toll, and his social life is unraveling. But that’s nothing compared to what’s really haunting him. Chase has done something cruel...something the perfect guy he pretends to be would never do. And it’s only a matter of time before he’s exposed.

In Ascension, mistakes can be deadly. And three girls—three beautiful, mysterious girls—are here to choose who will pay.

Em and Chase have been chosen.

Review:

It's winter in Ascension, Maine and a girl named Sasha has just attempted to kill herself. Right after this is when strange things start happening to Emily and Chase. Emily is lusting after her best friend's boyfriend and shortly after they start having an affair, three strange girls keep showing up. Chase is the star quarterback of the football team and had a connection with Sasha he doesn't want to talk or think about. Then he meets a beautiful redheaded girl named Ty and he can't stop thinking about her. Red orchids mark them as targets and they will be punished for their crimes.

Oh, Fury... Where do I begin? By saying you made me furious? No, too much of a pun. How about we get right to it and talk about why I didn't think you were a good book at all.

Chase, the male protagonist, was a jerk. If that had been a character trait he outgrew as he developed, grew up, and took responsibility for his own actions, that would have been fine. It wasn't, and he never did any of that. Ty comes along and acts very suspiciously, later doing things that humiliate him. He just forgives and forgets it all. When he admits he's never felt so strongly about someone before after just one meeting, why doesn't it occur to him to stop and think about how abnormal this is and think about the blatantly suspicious things Ty does? I played with the thought of some glamour or spell that kept him from thinking clearly, but there was no evidence of one existing and no one else was affected.

Our female protagonist Emily is no better. She is so naive that it could kill someone. Zach's intentions with her were obvious from what he said and did, but Emily is so sure he'll break up with Gabby for her. According to Emily, Gabby will totally forgive her for going behind her back with her boyfriend and won't be mad at all, and they'll still be best friends. Apologizing to the girl who tried to kill herself will make the Furies leave and make everything perfect again, also according to Emily. Even when all of this is proven wrong, Emily never sheds her infuriating naivete. I don't feel Emily ever really took responsibility for what she did and doing that much would have made me like her character much more.

Was the reader supposed to know from the beginning that Ty, Meg, and Ali were Furies? Between the title, their actions upon introduction, and how they're written, it's too obvious. It just has to be intentional. If it's not and the reveal at the very end of the book is supposed to be a Big Reveal, someone has seriously failed. It's still a serious fail even it if was supposed to be obvious. Anyone that reads this and figures it out early will have to endure "Who are they? How are they able to do that?" from the main characters for almost the entire book, and enduring a character's cluelessness when you figured it out a long time ago makes for a frustrating reading experience.

Not only do I want to know why the Greek Furies are in Maine, but I also want to know why they're wasting their time on Emily and Chase. Emily made out with her best friend's boyfriend and Chase humiliated a girl, which doubtlessly factored into her suicide attempt. Their actions weren't okay, but don't the Furies have better targets to go after than these kids? There are millions of murderers and animal abusers out there, but the Furies feel these kids committed crimes more worth their time than murder and animal abuse?

Slut shaming is not okay, okay? It was not at all okay for Emily to be called a slut for kissing Zach. I hate seeing slut thrown around so easily. Homophobia is also not okay. Calling Chase a faggot after his poetry (really Emily's, but everyone thinks it's Chase's) and naked pictures of him and are posted around the school is about fifty kinds of wrong and makes me want to scream. Not all guys that write poetry are gay, thinking about how your actions make other people feel is not gay, and it's not a bad thing to be gay. This book could use a lesson in that.

Besides entertainment value, Fury also lacks logic. A girl becomes a social pariah in part because she let two boys kiss her at the same party? I call bull. What does Chase decide is a good idea the day a photo of him begging on his knees is spread around school, making it look like he's begging for money when he's really begging for Ty to get off a bridge ledge before she falls in a river? Letting Ty take pictures of him completely naked, and those eventually end up posted around school too. Then Emily refuses to tell JD that she thinks she's being followed because she's afraid he'll think he's crazy. What people think of your mental capacity stops being important when you think you're being stalked.

Here are some questions for you: If Zach cheated on Gabby multiple times before cheating on her with Emily, and if Emily is targeted by the Furies immediately after making out with Zach for betraying her best friend, why wasn't Zach targeted at the same time for cheating on his girlfriend? Why didn't the Furies target him back when he first cheated on Gabby or any of the many times after that? And why is Zach not targeted by the Furies until the final two pages of the book? Now add in that Gabby blames Emily for what happened and not Zach, and Gabby gives Zach no trouble until she catches him cheating on her herself. All of this stinks of something disgusting.

On the bright side, the writing wasn't atrocious; it was easy to read and unless I skipped over them, I didn't find anything that gave me reason to nitpick over grammar, sentence structure, metaphors, similes, and other such details. It could have been much better, but it could have been much worse too. Then there was a moment where I cheered because JD called Emily out for being a naive, spoiled little girl in regards to the situation with Zach and Gabby. That was probably motivated out of jealousy more than anything and it only happened once, but I was happy to see that it happened at all.

Overall, I don't feel like Fury was worth the time I spent reading it. Reading isn't supposed to give me a headache born out of anger and frustration like this, is it? I was supposed to be entertained, and entertainment never happened. If any of what I've discussed is something you don't want to read about in books, then Fury is not the book for you.

1 star!

What am I reading next?: Unearthly by Cynthia Hand--the first book of the H.Y.P.E. Project!