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Tarnish by Katherin Longshore

19 Sep

tarnish

Book Two in the (sorta) Tudor Series

Rating: Two out of Five Stars

I adore the Tudor era and the opulence of books that are written based off of it. But this book, blech. Might as well be discussing the grass growing.

I guess I shouldn’t have set the bar so high for Tarnish considering Gilt was such a let down for me. But I just WANTED so much from this story, it has so much potential and was an utter failure. The richness, the drama, the romance, lies and hate and passion and everything that exemplifies the Tudor court was gone. Not only that, but Anne was meek and annoying and trivial. The Anne Boleyn that brought down kings is absent in this story. True, this book is based on her before-Queen time, but that fiery personality isn’t even relevant to this plot. Its rather ridiculous that someone could make Anne Boleyn, the woman who changed the English culture, the girl who changed the face of politics throughout the ENTIRE world, who spawned a BRAND NEW RELIGION, make her BORING! Completely inconsequential.

I do give mad props to Longshore for attempting to show a different side of the Boleyn story, but to end the book right before the juiciest part even begins?!? AGH! I want to tear my hair out. I could have suffered through this book if there was a second one coming that would validate this bland, boring, book as set up. I could survive if this was a first installment of decadent, passionate, sexy series that brought Henry, Anne, George, Jane, Thomas to a singeing peak of a climax that saw Catholicism in England diminish. Where we could experience the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn. I mean, at least Gilt lead us through Kat’s execution and finished the whole damn story. This book leaves you on the precipice of a cliff so tall you want to jump, no matter the landing, because you had to struggle through hundreds of pages of nonsense to reach nothing.

And the cover redesigns? Awful. Boring as hell. Why would someone think that the new cover for Gilt and Tarnish are better?

Needless to say, I wanted more. It was a disappointment. And now I am sad. And for some reason, I know I will read Brazen because I like to torture myself.

 

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The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

10 Sep

5thwave

Book One in The 5th Wave series

Rating: Five out of Five Stars

This book is one of a kind. Its creepy as hell but incredibly funny and hits you right in the gut. This book defines the word “gripping”. Its like a current in the ocean; you can feel it slowly taking hold of you and then woooosh… You are sucked under and can’t come up for breath until it releases you. Which isn’t until the last sentence of the book.

I think I have an author crush on Rick Yancey. Anyone who can make me love to read a YA novel through the POV of a five year old is gently and lovingly placed on a pedestal in Sydneyland. (Don’t worry, it’s not ALL in Sams POV, you get to see Cassie’s and Zombie’s too.)

He’s got a knack for creating a world that is real, tangible and freaky. (Not gunna lie I had to turn on Honey Boo Boo for an episode because I live by myself and started getting creeped out in the middle of the night reading this…) And then, not only does he add the creep factor into the messed up alien-invaded humanity deprived world, he layers on a delicious frosting of subtle humor that makes this book rocket up into stardom. Let me be clear, this not a comedy, but it is hilarious. I’ve never seen a YA author write humor with such deft hand. The jokes aren’t in your face, but it’s so teen-angsty, shock-induced quips that make me love every single narrator in this book.

Now I am not one for quoting books, but The 5th Wave has some incredibly deep insights that I think everyone should read:

“Cruelty isn’t a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit.”

“When the moment comes to stop running from your past, to turn around and face the thing you thought you could not face–the moment when your life teeters between giving up and getting up–when that moment comes, and it always comes, if you can’t get up and you can’t give up either, here’s what you do: Crawl.”

“God doesn’t call the equipped, son. God equips the called. And you have been called.”

“How do you rid the Earth of humans? Rid the human of their humanity”

And my favorite one of all from Miss Cassiopea herself:

“I don’t move. I wait behind my log, terrified. Over the past ten minutes, it’s become such a dear friend, I consider naming it: Howard, my pet log.”

I love Cassie. I love that she’s NOT this badass superhuman pro-tag. She’s a normal girl thrust into a crazy situation and trying to deal with it. She’s not Katniss, she’s me and you and any other normal girl. That’s why I love her. And I love that she loves Bear. Their relationship makes me happy. ❤

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Fragments by Dan Wells

4 Sep

fragments

Books Two in the Partials Series

Rating: Four out of Five Stars

This is a good book. A long book, but a good one nonetheless. The story is intricate and fast paced and just as fascinating as the first installment. Its plot is layered with delicately weaved suspense, action, romance and discovery which flow seamlessly between all characters. Although Kira annoyed me at times, she is still a pretty stellar heroine and has a great set of morals. Even if they are a little too uppity to be realistic.

One of the biggest differences between this book and the first was that Fragments has switching narrators. I loved viewing life through the eyes of Marcus, Ariel, Haru and briefly through Samm’s. It added an element to this installment that the original didn’t have and allowed the pace and plot to roll out magnificently. I always prepare myself for second books to be a little lame, slow paced and basically just fluff. But Wells did a great job of structuring Fragments into a very gripping book. While it was once again a hefty read, the story didn’t get bogged down with unnecessary drama that most second books do. And this lingering romance between Marcus, Samm, and Kira is so down-played it makes me happy. This love triangle is NOT in your face, and could hardly be called a love triangle at all because I think romance is mentioned by each of the three involved… maybe two or three times each? Very refreshing.

As I mentioned before, Kira kind of rubbed me the wrong way a few times but overall was a great pro-tag. The thing that bugs me is her one-purpose mind set. While I understand she wants to save everyone, I feel sometimes Wells didn’t spend enough time on her reasoning and emotions to solidify her status as the Savior of Humans and Partials. SPOILER! And the fact that Wells spent zero time on Kira’s feelings after Afa’s death really irked me. They just glazed over it like it was nbd some DIED. Someone that they drug unwillingly through a chemical wasteland and was mentally handicapped. It was much too blase for my taste. But besides that and Kira’s sometimes overwhelming self-righteousness, her decision at the end makes up for the bs I didn’t like early in the book.

Overall, a decent read.

 

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The Hazards of Skinny Dipping by Alyssa Rose Ivy

16 Aug

thehazards

 

Rating: Five out of Five Stars

There’s a not whole lot I can say about this book…

besides that IT. WAS. FANTASTIC.

I adore everything single little thing about this book. The pro-tag, the premise, the plot, characters, pace, everything everything everything. There is not ONE thing I can critique. Every female in her teens and up should read this, it’s wonderful.

I picked this book up as a “if I get to it” read. It was discounted on Amazon and I really need a break from my typical YA dystopia/fantasy/sci-fi stuff because I’ve been really getting burnt out with the same story over and over and over again. But this little beauty was so perfect. It was exactly what I needed and everything I wanted.

Ivy does an amazing job of creating our main character, Juliet. She’s sassy but not a bitch, playful but not crazy, smart but not a nerd. I just adored every little thing about her. I really liked how it wasn’t the same ole tale of nerd girl losing her V card, or beauty queen getting a smack down; there was no ugly duckling transformation here. It was a normal, good looking female, who has had sex entering the great wide world of college. She’s dealing with boys and romance and sex. Its not uncomfortable, its relatable. Its the perfect coming of age novel without it being a TYPICAL coming of age novel. I really can’t gush enough about how much I enjoyed it… umm I read it in THREE hours.

SO yeah, it’s by far one of my new favs. And the BEST introduction into the New Age genre evers.

 

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Crash by Lisa McMann

8 Aug

crash

Book One in the Visions Series

Rating: Three out of Five Stars

I really wanted to give this book two stars, but the wit in the book is just too damn amusing to not get three.

I’ll be a little harsh here, the concept of this book is laughable. Not in the “har har it’s supposed concept is a comedy” way but a “how did this get published” way. I almost hope that McMann was spoofing all of the big YA themes in this book and Crash really was a silent jab at the overuse of the YA ideas (insta love, boy treats girl like shit but girl still loves him, wrong side of the track friends/lovers, blah de blah). But, that could just be me trying to rationalize why I actually did enjoy this book in twisted way.

Crash is basically a modern-day food-obsessed version of Romeo and Juliet with a heavy layer of supernatural smothering it. Boy and girl lurve each others, parents hateses each other, and she is destined to save him or die trying! ONWARD LEAD THE CHAAARGE!!

(man I am REALLY getting into this review…*settles down*)

Crash is an amusing book, shallow, but entertaining. There’s not a whole lot of meat and potatoes but the banter had me cracking up. I would have to set the book down because it would launch me into little giggle fits. The exchanges between Jules and her brother were spot on. The sarcasm was level awesome, especially at the end.

But the book, the plot, the characterizations, was weak. You can’t sink your teeth into anything and Jules annoyed the hell outa me most of the time. On top of it being pretty predictable and me literally scoffing out loud at the end followed by a huge eye roll.. that’s why this book will only be getting three stars.

(Could be that because pizza was mentioned throughout the entire book and intimately described at the beginning is also why I’ve bumped up the rating.)

But regardless.. it’s quick and easy and funny. Just don’t except something epic.

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Asunder by Jodi Meadows

2 Jul

13043180

Book Two in the Newsoul Series

Rating: One out of Five Stars

I am going to give everyone a heads up… this review will be snarktastic.

So I’ve had some time to step away from this book and allow my feelings to mellow out a bit. But sadly, my rating is not changing from a One Star. I know a lot of people ohemgee-loved-this-book but I have to, respectively, disagree. Please please don’t hate me for this review.

Be warned: There are spoilers aplenty in this.

And I apologize in advance for my swearing. *Sowwy*

Alright:

bmode

What, in all that is good and holy in this world, the f**k was Meadows thinking with this disaster of book? I don’t think I’ve read something so disorganized as this plot or as weak and pathetic as a main a character since 50 Shades of Bullshit landed in my unknowing lap. And the worst part about my hatred of this book was that I gave Incarnate FOUR STARS! Four freaking stars. Talk about fab to drab in 400 pages. Good lord I would rather torture myself with entire 1500 page Matched series again before I would submit to reading Asunder a second time. It was painfully awful. And I can actually say PAINFULLY because I rolled my eyes so many times while I went through chapters of this book I gave myself a headache. A self-induced, eye rolling headache. If that doesn’t scream “bad book” I don’t know WHAT does.

To be fair, I will list my grievances in a civilized and decent manner and feel free to argue against any of the following points:

1.) As expressed clearly in my review of Incarnate, the world building was extremely lacking. But I think I had tricked myself into thinking that it was acceptable in Book One because the concept was so new. Perhaps my WSOD meter was just catching up?  Now though, the newness has worn off and I am left with this jumble of words and bullshit that is attempting to congeal it’s self into some semblance of a working plot. For example: There’s only one effing city in the whole world (planet? land? Earth? Universe?) and it can house a million people? And yet you can walk from one side of the city to the other in a day. A city where every single “soul” has their own house, with their own yard? Riiight. OK yeah that makes PERFECT F*CKING SENSE. And this glorious city that just sits on this volcano just “happens” to have the right amount of houses with walls that, excuse me, pulse? Cool, nbd, awesome. Let me just segway into my next point on that creepy shit..

2.)Sooo… our “bad guy” is actually the wall that pulses? Who is actually Janan?  Who is a god but USED to be a real person? And he’s the reason that everything happens in this god-forsaken world/land/planet?

confused
No, that’s not confusing at all. Totally understand THAT connection. Moving on.

(If you don’t get the sarcasm in the points above, shame on you. Just stop reading now)

Ok so besides the completely illogical world that is never fully described and the creepy as f*ck wall/bad guy/god thingy, we could almost save this book at a couple stars if we had a solid main character and a good romance. But alas, that was not to be found in this darling book. Proceed on, oh bitchy rant!

3.) Ana. Young, innocent, naive, newsoul Ana. How I wish you had one ounce of redeeming qualities in you. Instead, if I saw you on the streets, I would throw a rock at you too, you stupid fickle twat. Now here is my biggest beef with Meadows at the moment: WHY DID YOU CHANGE ANA SO MUCH? Yes, she was indecisive and and yes, she kind of made no sense in her decisions making, but at least she was endearing! You tried too hard and tried to accomplish so much with her and it just fell so flat. Everything became soo… coincidental. She just “happens” to have the key that “happens” to be the clue to unlocking this whole messed up Janan crap? I can see how Ana was trying to be this Grand Savior and all that but she just.. wasn’t. She’s weak. Annoying, self-centered and weak. And she has a wrapped and twisted review on reality, I feel sorry for the poor thing. I mean come on, she would NEVER confront Sam on anything. Ana was so terrified of making him mad or uncomfortable or upset she never DID anything. She was so forgiving (practically instantaneously) that every time she “got mad” I pictured a 2 year old stomping her feet for 30 seconds than moving onto the next toy. And her morals went out the window. She wanted to wait to have sex in Incarnate but she was like a two dollar hussy in Asunder. Ugh.

4.) And don’t even get me STARTED on Sam and their “romance”. Seriously. Don’t.

shot

I could really go on and on.. but I’ll save myself a hand cramp and your most likely bleeding ears from my never-ending spiel of how disappointed I am with this book. I will read the third, purely because I did enjoy the first so much and because I adore Jodi Meadows. But lord help me if it’s as twisted and stupid as the second.
going to hell

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Poison by Bridget Zinn

24 Jun

Poison

No series

Rating: Two out of Five Stars

This book reminds me a lot of Scarlet by A.C Gaughen. It’s a little slip of a story with a lot of fluff and not a lot of meat. Although I will admit that I had QUITE the shock when we find out who Kyra’s mom is. GASP! I was totally taken by surprise.  So well done, Zinn.

I am always hesitant to read stand alone books because there just is not enough time to really get into the story. The characters, the world, the premise tend to be a bit superficial. ESPECIALLY when it’s a fantasy book. To develop a world in 300 pages that’s believable, a plot that viable, and a character that’s relatable is pretty much impossible. Hence my beef with stand alone fantasy books and this book in particular. The pro-tag was meh, the storyline was alright and I couldn’t even begin to explain the world because it wasn’t explained at all in the book.

If I was to describe this book, I would stick with words like “cute” and “quaint”. It’s a little young, maybe more geared to late middle-grade, than YA readers. I mean come on, she has a baby pig as a pet guide dog. And there’s no real tension or anything truly gripping but it’s an easy read. So, if you are looking for a true fluff book, something you don’t really have to pay attention to, go for it. But if you are looking for something with true substance, look elsewhere my friends.

 

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Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

20 Jun

incarnate

Book One in the Newsoul Series

Rating: Four out of Five Stars

This will be an interesting review to write…

I am going to make this simple as I can: I liked this book but it confused the shit out of me. It was an interesting concept that was totally in it’s own world of weirdness. It was an intriguing storyline and that cover??? TO. DIE. FOR.

Now, there are pros and cons to being such a different story. It was it’s own completely unique concept and like nothing I’ve ever read before, therefore the book had some hurdles to jump through to compensate that my WSOD was confronted with this scenario for the first time. As bad as this may sound, once you’ve read a dystopia novel or fantasy novel, you kind of “get” how they play out. For dystopias, there’s always a cause for the apocalypse or downfall of democracy, there are people that took over, there are people that are trying to fight them, and then there’s the on going battle of survival or take down of the new government. Details vary in each dystopia but they have the same basic gist and premise in every book. Fantasy books always have a unique world, usually forresty and flowery with some kind of ancient magic attached to it, a pro-tag with some kind of connection to said land magic, and a evil doer trying to exploit that magic.

This book however, had none of these elements.

It WAS a fantasy book, but also with a science fiction flavor in it. But the science was based off the fantasy world so it wouldn’t actually count for “sci fi”. Also, you never really learn if this world is OUR world, just years before/after our time, or a completely new planet. Because it has the same properties as our world, plants, animals, gravity, ECT. but it also has slyphs (black shadow things that attack and burn you), dragons, trolls, and centaurs. Oh and then  there’s that thing where only one million souls are ever born and they keep being reincarnated.

So besides being confused on where the hell and when the hell this whole story takes place, I liked it. Which is strange because I was VERY confused at times. Ana, our pro-tag, is all over the place with rapid fire decision making skills and emotional changes I could hardly keep up with. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on… and the “love story”? Pooh. And yet for some strange reason… I still liked it?

Ah well… *shurgs* Read it for me and then maybe we can all get together and discuss it, yeah?

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Black Helicopters by Blythe Woolston

30 May

15798680

Rating: Four out of Five Starts

This book… this book is… is…. stunning.

Or as I said when I was 50 pages in “Holy shiznat, friends. This book is breathtaking in it’s simplicity and intensity.”

Black Helicopters is probably the most captivating book I’ve read in a looong looong time. Now I’ve read decent books lately, but they are my typical genre YA fantasy/dystopia books. This book is neither and yet it will appeal to ANYONE who likes to read those. Keeping in mind that this is a dark book though!  I am really struggling trying to write a proper review because I cannot capture the essence of this short story because it’s so… different? It’s pure and raw and graphic and its sooo emotional but it has the least emotional pro-tag I’ve ever read. It’s gritty and mind-boggling and twisted because the “bad guy” is our hero in the story. The warped, off-kilter villains we always read about in the newspapers is Black Helicopter’s narrators. It’s an amazing book with a deep, dark, scary viewpoint.

I’m in utter and completely awe of this. So I will stick with my original review on Goodreads of this:

wha

slow

 

Do your self a solid and take a few hours to read this baby. It’s short and will change your mind about a lot of things.

 

 

To read a well articulated review of this, because I completely failed at it, visit The Midnight Garden’s website.

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Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

29 May

10874177

Book One in the Finishing School Series

Rating: Two out of Five Stars

This book has some really awesome qualities. And some really not so awesome qualities.

Pros:

1.) Concept – steam punk, dresses, finishing schools and assassins! What is there NOT to like about any of that?! And there is plenty of all of those yummy little things in this story.

2.) Pace – the tempo of the book is perfect for the theme; fast paced yet balanced. It has the right amount of dialogue and action scenes so it doesn’t bore you or exhaust you while reading.

3.) Um… I’ll try to think of a third…

Cons:

1.) Believability – I know I know, steampunk is a genre that you have to get into like fantasy. But my WSOD meter was way off the charts and the descriptions weren’t as developed as I wanted them to be. Pictures, as silly as that may sound, would be immensely helpful. (Scott Westerfeld did it in Leviathan!)

2.) Character Development – I wanted to strangle Sophronia most of the time. She’s a cocky, self absorbed little shit who needs to be walloped upside the head. She goes to a damn finishing school to get lady-ized and all she does is start to break more rules. WHY do the adult figures put up with it? It’s infuriating and turned me off from wanting to read the rest of the series. There’s a little thing called discipline that needs to be introduced to the book. If Sophronia would get caught, held accountable for her actions, and learned something from being punished, maybe I could empathize with her more. But instead she’s a bratty little wild child with no restraint. No thank you.

3.) Target readers/audience level – I will just go ahead and admit it: I have no idea who this book was written for. None. Zero. Zip. I know Gail Carriger has an adult series (which I have not read) and this was meant to be a YA book (but set in the same world). Hmmm… I think she got confused sometimes as to whom she was writing this for. The writing style is elevated: big words, gorgeous syntax, delicious flow. But the character is definitely a middle grade target (which is obvi from my rant above). Maybe she thought if she wrote the same way she did in her adult book but just made it a 14 year old character it would be ok? But I think if I was a 14 year old reading this, it might be a touch over my head. It definitely doesn’t have a specific target nor can it really cross into a Harry Potter like phenom of everyone-can-read-it book. It’s just awkwardly in the middle.

Alright, so I know my cons were a lot more con-ny then my pros were positive. I wanted to like this book, tried, cajoled, bribed my mind into wanting to adore this book. But I can’t. So I’ll leave my rating at a two and if I’m ever desperate for a book, maybe I’ll read the second in the series. Mer :/

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