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ARC Review: “The Eternity Cure” by Julie Kagawa

May 20, 2013

The Enternity CureThe Eternity Cure (Blood of Eden #2) by Julie Kagawa

Goodreads | Amazon

Allison Sekemoto has vowed to rescue her creator, Kanin, who is being held hostage and tortured by the psychotic vampire Sarren. The call of blood leads her back to the beginning—New Covington and the Fringe, and a vampire prince who wants her dead yet may become her wary ally.

Even as Allie faces shocking revelations and heartbreak like she’s never known, a new strain of the Red Lung virus that decimated humanity is rising to threaten human and vampire alike.

3 1/2 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and HarlequinTeen for this eARC! This title is now available.

WARNING: There WILL be spoilers for the first book! Check out my review of The Immortal Rules if you’re interested!

I went into this book knowing that nothing could be as good as the first book in this series. This is because, a, I went into a complete flail attack over The Immortal Rules and, b, second book syndrome is so rampant lately that I just couldn’t get my hopes up. So I guess,  in that way, I got exactly what I expected.

The book picks up with Allie having just been kicked out of Eden, on her way to finding Kanin. It takes a little while for it to get started, what with her just roaming the countryside and all that. Her nighttime visions of Kanin are seriously creepy, and keep the stakes up while Allie attacks dingy bars and skulks around “Old D.C.” Instead of finding Kanin, however, she first finds her old nemesis, Jackal. He has a proposition of friendship for her–and if she doesn’t accept, he’ll kill her.

Again, this book takes a little while to get started, but once the character of Jackal is introduced all is forgiven. I don’t understand how I can love him so much after what he did in the first book, but his comic relief and sarcastic personality is just the greatest thing ever. At the same time, though, he acts as a great foil for Allie’s continuing struggle with what it means to be a monster. I thought Jackal was the funniest thing ever and loved him, but I never totally trusted him not to go killing everything, and I was very impressed on how Kagawa wrote that balance.

I think my real problem with this book is that it seemed to be going backwards, both in terms of location and characters. At the end of The Immortal Rules, Allie had made it from New Covington to Eden, and the book ended with a fight with Jackal. This book starts with her leaving Eden, meeting Jackal, and then travelling with him to New Covington. The final showdown even takes place in the lab where Allie learned how to be a vampire in the first book.

Closer to the end, the characterization starts to get a little weird as well. Kanin, Allie and Jackal are extremely well done, but some other characters that crop back up seem to come back as weirdly different people. One of these people is Zeke, of course, though he is absent for the first part of the book as per the “middle book syndrome” formula. He’s similar to the Zeke from the first book, but also different, in ways that are weird since he spent time being primped and pampered in Eden. Also, some of the plot twists later made with  his character pop up as “haha gotcha” half jokes clearly just shoehorned in for the sake of the plot. The character of Stick also pops back up, and his transformation is even more severe. Half of it I get, half of it I don’t, but either way his character leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I guess I’m just frustrated with how much of this seemed like filler. In the end, I’m not sure how much was accomplished besides making Sarren even angrier and establishing Jackal as a character. Granted, I enjoy Jackal very much, but still. And then there is the matter of the ending, which…grr. I don’t understand the point of making us think someone is dead if you’re going to reverse that in the next chapter, and make THAT the last chapter of the book. Where’s the cliffhanger there? It makes the next book a little more predictable, and I’m not entirely a fan of where I think it’s going.

All in all, I demoted this one a full star from what I rated it’s predecessor, but I still really think these books are worth a read. Despite my plot problems, Jackal made this book for me, and it was still an enjoyable read. I also have complete faith that Kagawa is going to get back to her blowing-me-away style in the next and last book. I know vampires are getting a bit passe, but these are still definitely on my recommendation list.

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ARC Review: “The Obsidian Mirror” by Catherine Fisher

May 16, 2013

The Obsidian MirrorThe Obsidian Mirror (Chronoptika #1) by Catherine Fisher

Goodreads | Amazon

Jake’s father disappears while working on mysterious experiments with the obsessive, reclusive Oberon Venn. Jake is convinced Venn has murdered him. But the truth he finds at the snow-bound Wintercombe Abbey is far stranger … The experiments concerned a black mirror, which is a portal to both the past and the future. Venn is not alone in wanting to use its powers. Strangers begin gathering in and around Venn’s estate: Sarah – a runaway, who appears out of nowhere and is clearly not what she says, Maskelyne – who claims the mirror was stolen from him in some past century. There are others, a product of the mirror’s power to twist time. And a tribe of elemental beings surround this isolated estate, fey, cold, untrustworthy, and filled with hate for humans. But of them all, Jake is hell-bent on using the mirror to get to the truth. Whatever the cost, he must learn what really happened to his father.

2 1/2 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Dial Publishers for this eARC! This title is now available.

I am usually pretty easy to please with world building. As long as I know enough to keep me up to date on the lingo of the story, I’m fine. If the story can whizz by so fast the world building is not necessary, I never require it. But when a book keeps chucking terms and events at me with absolutely no explanation? Then I get annoyed.

I was out of my depth with this book from almost the first moment. There are multiple storylines for multiple characters straight from the gate. The character of Jake is by far my favorite, just because everything he does makes sense and he never uses fancy words. I start to lose it, however, with the introduction of Sarah. She lands in a field from out of nowhere, starts shouting names of people we’ve never met, is suddenly being chased by a wolf that is not a wolf (or is it?) and gets into the home of Jake’s godfather by pretending she’s an escaped crazy patient (or is she?). There’s talk of time travel and replicants, which gives this a distinctly scifi feel, but then we also get introduced to the Shee, which are basically fairies. Confused yet? Because at this point my head was just exploding—and this isn’t even the half of it.

I was never able to get into the groove of this book, because I only ever got half of what was going on. Every attempt I made to get into the flow was instantly thwarted by a new term or concept or event that I didn’t understand the basics of.  I will say, though, that Fisher did a masterful job of tying everything together in the end of the book. Things that had been confusing before suddenly made a lot more sense, even as new befuddlements cropped up. Still, if I hadn’t been reading this for review, I probably would never have made it that far into the book. I was so frustrated for so long that I almost stopped reading.

That being said, the characters in this book had very obvious motives for everything that happened, with the exception of the butler who is still a mystery to me. Jake is searching for his lost parents, Sarah wants to rescue her parents, Venn wants to save his wife, Wharton wants to protect Jake, etc. They all have very human reasons for what they do, and I never question their actions, even when they have negative consequences. It’s rare that a cast this large has that as an almost universal quality, and that impressed me.

This book could be a great read for someone with more patience with me, or maybe the ability to read between the lines better than I can. For me, though, I just didn’t have the patience to wait for things to be explained to me until literally the falling action of the book. The concept was an interesting one, but it quickly soured on me when I couldn’t get into the action—which was plentiful—because I still had no idea how anything worked. If I can get an ARC of the next book, then I might read it for the sake of the characters, but it won’t be a must grab for me.

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ARC Review: “Moonset” by Scott Tracey

March 15, 2013

MoonsetMoonset (Legacy of Moonset #1) by Scott Tracey

Goodreads | Amazon

Justin Daggett, his trouble-making sister, and their three orphan-witch friends have gotten themselves kicked out of high school. Again. Now they’ve ended up in Carrow Mills, New York, the town where their parents—members of the terrorist witch organization known as Moonset—began their evil experiments with the dark arts one generation ago.

When the siblings are accused of unleashing black magic on the town, Justin fights to prove their innocence. But tracking down the true culprit leads him to a terrifying discovery about Moonset’s past . . . and its deadly future.

2 stars

Thank you to Flux and NetGalley for this eARC! This title will be available April 8th.

This review was completed by guest reviewer Sarah from Adventures in Storyland! Thank you, Sarah!

“Moonset. The name we’d inherited from our parents, now a slur as bad as any other four letter word. Even fifteen years after their death, people didn’t use the word Moonset lightly.

Because of it, we had people like Miss Virago, following us around. Waiting for the mistake that would push us over the edge from ‘innocent’ to ‘dangerous.’ 

Waiting for the day they could kill us, too.”

Moonset follows five teenagers, the surviving children of a cult behind a lethal uprising in the magical community. They’re cared for by the magic government, constantly moved around from town to town and school to school, and are generally mistrusted because of their heritage. This first novel in a series involves the teens getting trapped into a plot to draw out a warlock, and it’s entirely possible that no one cares whether or not they live through the attempt.

Moonset starts off rocky and then pretty much continues to be rocky right up until the rocky end. It’s not a bad book, it just didn’t really catch my attention. I had trouble connecting to any of the characters, and flat-out hated others. The protagonist, Justin, was okay but he never interested me that much. His twin, Jenna, is a bratty diva with anger issues that I spent the entire book wanting to punch. The other siblings mostly fade into the background. The love interest, Ash, is squashed into the role of manic pixie dream girl for most of the novel.

The plot is okay, but everything moves rather slowly. There’s a lot of talking and thinking and people not trusting them, but between the first chapter and the last half of the book, not a lot of action. Luckily, the magic system and world-building of this magic community are actually pretty awesome. I was really interested in learning about how their magic works and it’s pretty cool.

Basically, if you’re into magic teens and some political mayhem, you’d probably dig the book. I initially gave it a 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, but I think I’m going to downgrade to 2 out of 5 stars. It didn’t keep me nearly interested enough.

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ARC Review: “Renegade” by Amy Carol Reeves

March 14, 2013

Renegade2Renegade (Ripper #2) by Amy Carol Reeves

Goodreads | Amazon

Brimming with romance and danger, the suspenseful Ripper series continues

The Conclave—a secret group with twisted ideals and freakish practices—has been wiped out, thanks to Arabella Sharp. Now there’s a new malevolence afoot. Fishermen are getting killed, their partially devoured bodies washing up on the shores of Scotland. Is the Ripper responsible? Or have the Conclave’s sinister experiments left behind something more monstrous? Abbie fears the worst when her beloved Dr. William Siddal vanishes. To save the man she loves, Abbie must comply with the Ripper’s dreadful orders—and put her own life in grave danger.

3 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Flux for this eARC! This title will be released April 8th.

This review was completed by guest reviewer Sarah from Adventures in Storyland! Thank you, Sarah!

(Note: This is a review for the second book in a series. It contains spoilers for the first book, Ripper.)

“I saw bubbles in the greenish depths of water somewhere. A creature, dragon-like, with a tail. Claws. In the murky water, I saw the creature’s scaly haunches, thick and muscular like a lioness’s, as my nostrils became overwhelmed with the smell of fish, of seaweed. The monster had hair, long hazelnut hair billowing out like burnt gold threads in the water. I saw the swift, fleshy movements of breasts. I gasped and the dream left me almost as soon as it appeared.”

I wondered where the Ripper series could go after all of Jack the Ripper’s canonical victims had been killed in the first book. The killer lived, but I was still uncertain. As the series is called Ripper, I assumed it would stay within that realm. Instead, it goes off the charts. other than the continued interest of an inspector, the Ripper case is left behind. Renegade concentrates instead on the experiments done by the Conclave. In the quote above, Abbie experiences a vision of a lamia created by the Conclave’s experiments. There are also zombies of some sort, but that thread disappears about halfway through the book and never really comes back. I can only assume it will be used in the third book.

It’s easy for a YA period book to slap the reader across the face with how very different and radical the female protagonist is, and how all other women are sheep. Renegade avoids this. It’s certainly acknowledged that Abbie’s desire to be a doctor will be difficult since few medical programs admit women, but it’s mostly taken in stride. She’s an intelligent nurse with a dedication to her patients that wants to go to medical school, and that’s accepted. Other women aren’t insulted or shamed to make her look good. It’s refreshing.

The major annoyance for me in Renegade was Abbie’s love life. Early on in the book, she discovers that William, her major love interest from Ripper, had slept with a woman nearly twice his age that had once been his father’s mistress. This was before he ever met Abbie and took place at a tumultuous time in her life, but Abbie is furious and feels betrayed. She decides that she can’t trust William and that he’ll probably just be a philanderer like his father, so she ends their relationship and then spends a lot of time thinking about how very, very hurt she is. I was thrilled when she slapped William for saying, “After all, I’m a man,” as a reason for his affair, but that was the one bright point. I got so sick of hearing about it that I could feel my eyes and brain glazing over.

Chapters from the lamia Seraphina’s point of view were a welcome break from Abbie’s whining about William. Monster ladies are kind of the best, and this one was complex and interesting. She hungers for human flesh, but because she loves her human master and is loyal to the Conclave, she keeps her appetites at bay. She’s in charge of caring for the Conclave’s menagerie, and does so with great dedication. She loves the animals dearly. She’s a painter who never finishes her work. She lives alone on an island, isolated, waiting for the times when her master will return and struggling to keep a feeding frenzy at bay. It was fascinating to watch her development as a character. I could have read an entire book about her and done without Abbie altogether.

All in all, if you enjoyed Ripper, you’ll probably enjoy Renegade, if not like it more. I know I had a lot more fun with it than I did with its predecessor. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars. The writing wasn’t great, but it kept me entertained.

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ARC Review: “Uses for Boys” by Erica Lorraine Scheidt

January 31, 2013

Uses for BoysUses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt

Goodreads | Amazon

Anna remembers a time before boys, when she was little and everything made sense. When she and her mom were a family, just the two of them against the world. But now her mom is gone most of the time, chasing the next marriage, brining home the next stepfather. Anna is left on her own—until she discovers that she can make boys her family. From Desmond to Joey, Todd to Sam, Anna learns that if you give boys what they want, you can get what you need. But the price is high—the other kids make fun of her; the girls call her a slut. Anna’s new friend, Toy, seems to have found a way around the loneliness, but Toy has her own secrets that even Anna can’t know.

Then comes Sam. When Anna actually meets a boy who is more than just useful, whose family eats dinner together, laughs, and tells stories, the truth about love becomes clear. And she finally learns how it feels to have something to lose—and something to offer. Real, shocking, uplifting, and stunningly lyrical, Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt is a story of breaking down and growing up.

1 1/2 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for this eARC! This title is now available.

CONTENT WARNING: If you are the kind of person who doesn’t like graphic sex in your books … look elsewhere. This review will also be discussing this, so … fair warning. THERE WILL BE ALL OF THE SPOILERS because I can’t even handle what happened.

When I read this blurb, I had my assumptions about this book. I was expecting a broken girl meets a good guy and everything is happiness and puppies until something happens and then they break up and then they realize their love for each other and then get back together. You know, the basic plot of every romance story ever. What with the beautiful cover and the promise of “lyrical” prose, I thought that’s what HAD to be going on here.

IT’S NOT. IT’S REALLY NOT.

Okay, lyrical yes. And that’s the only reason for that half star, there. Scheidt does have a way with words I can’t deny. Fair warning, though, that’s going to be about the only good thing I say about this book. I try to keep it SO BALANCED in my reviews, usually, but this one … I just can’t do it.

Let’s talk about Anna, first. Anna is the most passive, depressed child I’ve ever met, who is so obsessed with sex I can’t even. I’ll mention this again, but you should know right now that most of this book takes place when Anna is 14 to 16 years old. BUT SHE’S SO OBSESSED WITH SEX. Also, also, back to the passive part. Anna doesn’t give the air of DOING much in this book at all. She basically just drifts through life, magically always finding another guy to sleep with her when she gets bored. And each one of them is more of a horrible person than the last, until Sam. But still. I couldn’t help but hate her from page one, because she doesn’t DO ANYTHING.

So, basically, the whole first part of the book is about how Anna’s mom does nothing but chase guys around her entire life. She gets married, they move, she gets divorced, etc. Anna is always lonely and hates her life. Then, one day, on the bus, this guy named Desmond starts playing with her breasts and she lets him, disconnectedly looking out the window the whole time, until she jumps off at her bus stop without even reacting to the whole thing. A couple of bus rides later, Desmond has brought his two friends in on the fun, and everyone in school is calling Anna a slut because she’s letting these boys do whatever they want under her shirt. SHE IS THIRTEEN AT THIS POINT.

Then Anna gets a boyfriend. His name is Joey, and without any preamble he starts spending every day after school at her house, having sex. Seriously. A recurring theme with the guys in this book is that they give their name and then there is sex. There is no in between. There are lots and lots of sex, some happy feelings, and then Joey announces he’s moving away. Anna has sex with him one last time, and then he’s gone. Bam. SHE IS FOURTEEN AT THIS POINT.

Then Anna’s mom finally remembers her daughter exists and takes her on vacation with her and her current boyfriend. At this point I was like, FINALLY SOME GOOD THINGS. But that’s a lie. There are no good things. During a party at the house of Anna’s new friend, this guy named Todd starts messing with her breasts without asking. Anna’s friend tells him to go away, but this just makes Anna moody. That night, Todd creeps in to her room in the middle of the night and rapes her. Yes, rapes her. Covers her mouth with his hand and everything. After it’s over, the only other mentions of Todd are Anna missing him. Then the fact that she was raped just disappears. THERE IS NO AMOUNT OF CAPS THAT CAN EXPLAIN HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS. Fine, maybe the fact that she wants to believe he really liked her is a PTSD thing. But IF YOU INCLUDE RAPE, IT CANNOT BE A PLOT CONVENTION. It cannot be a thing that just happens and then life goes on like la-dee-da. Just–I can’t explain how angry this made me.

Some times passes, and then Anna meets Josh. They have sex, and a few pages later they’re moving in together. I think Anna’s 16 or 17 by this point. She drops out of school and starts working at a coffee shop. Then she realizes she’s pregnant and goes to have an abortion. Yep, yep, exactly what I just said. There is pregnancy and there is an abortion. That happened. By this point, I just can’t even any more.

Josh and Anna break up really soon after the abortion, and Anna moves in on her own. AT SEVENTEEN. She has a couple of one nights stands with random dudes and then she meets Sam. Sam is the most normal guy in this book. He’s 17 and sweet to Anna. For at least a couple of pages it’s not about sex. Then it’s about sex again, maybe just with a little more love. The thing is that the Sam thing is only a tiny bit of the book, not the bulk of it like I expected, and even during it Anna feels listless and passive. By this point, I don’t think she can be repaired quite that easily.

I respect what the author was trying to do. I do–none of this is easy stuff to write about. But I still can’t deny that I just felt sick to my stomach for this entire book. The rape, the abortion, the sex and everything in between–I literally could barely handle it. I only finished it because I wanted to write my review with the whole picture, because I KNEW I had to say SO MANY THINGS about this book. Even now, I cannot believe what I read. Yes, I understand it’s realistic. Yes, I understand the author was trying to present something other than the bright side of life. I respect the attempt, but I cannot in good faith give this book anything more than 1 1/2 stars and I certainly won’t recommend it to anyone. I read books as an escape from this negativity, and when I put this book down I was depressed for two days. I haven’t been this angry since Beautiful Disaster and Shattered Souls. Maybe this works for some people, but just certainly not for me.

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ARC Review: “Splintered” by A. G. Howard

January 25, 2013

SplinteredSplintered by A. G. Howard

Goodreads | Amazon

This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.
When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.

4 1/2 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Amulet Books for this eARC! This title is now available.

I liked basically every Disney movie as a kid. Every one, that is, except for Alice in Wonderland. When the new fad became Alice retellings, I rolled my eyes and said, “There’s no way this goes well.” I still requested Splintered anyways.

Then I finally started reading.

Alyssa isn’t supposed to be Alice. Alice went and came back from Wonderland ages ago, and now her family has to deal with the notoriety of that fact—and the fact that all the women in her family since Alice had ended up locked away in asylums, if they didn’t kill themselves first. Alyssa’s mother has been committed for a great deal of Alyssa’s life, and Alyssa herself has just started hearing the voices of plants and bugs. She’s pretty sure she’s going to follow her mom shortly. She tries to make the voices stop by turning bugs into artwork and skateboarding with her iPod turned up. The other voice, the familiar and male one, that’s in her head all the time like a second consciousness isn’t helping matters, though.

And that is just the beginning.

Now, you may be able to understand how much I was drooling by this point already. This isn’t the Alice story of your childhood, people. Even when Alyssa gets to Wonderland, Howard turns all your preconceptions on your head. For just a teaser, you know the White Rabbit? Well, Alice messed up his name. He’s actually called White Rabid, and he’s partially a skeleton. You cannot tell me that isn’t an awesome way to go. You can’t.

I wish I could explain more of the twists, but then there would be spoilers and oh dear. But just know they’re SO AWESOME.

Besides all the things Howard has done to the world, I was also impressed by how layered the plot was. Morpheus—this hot fairy dude who Alice called the Caterpillar—is the mastermind behind everything that happens, but he is so good at keeping the truth concealed that you never know what’s actually going on until the end. Is he good? Is he bad? His character arc is a zigzag that doesn’t stop! (Well, until the end, but that would be a spoiler.)

I think most of the reason for the half star loss is the characterization of Morpheus and Alyssa’s other love interest, Jeb. Yes, other love interest. Morpheus yanks Alyssa’s chain so many times that I still don’t know what to think of him, and I never believed she could love him. Jeb, on the other hand, is the usual best friend/knight in shining armor. So, yeah, this love triangle has the requisite bad boy vs. good boy thing going on, which I don’t like. However, I will say that I did NOT expect the ending in anyway, so kudos for that.

At the end of the day, though, I cannot believe how much I liked this book. Despite being tied to a retelling, it was interesting and unique. The plot never ever stopped moving, and I was always kept guessing. If Alice in Wonderland is your thing, GET THIS. NOW. Even if it isn’t, though, and you’re looking to check out one of the new Alice books because you’re curious, this would be my pick FOR SURE!

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ARC Review: “Othermoon” by Nina Berry

December 28, 2012

othermoonOthermoon (Otherkin #2) by Nina Berry

Goodreads | Amazon | My Review of Book 1

Everyone has secrets. I had no idea mine would lead me into shadow.

Dez has found the place where she belongs. With the otherkin. With Caleb. Or so she thought. As the barriers between our world and Othersphere fall, a wall rises between Dez and Caleb, leaving her fiercest enemy her only friend.

And maybe something more.

Now Dez must make a devastating choice: keep the love of her life, or save the otherkin from annihilation.

4 stars

Thanks to K-Teen and NetGalley for this eARC! This title will be released January 29th, 2013

You know when you have those moments when you’re like “I’m going to rate this book -5,000,000 because it just BROKE MY HEART” and then you realize “CRAPCRAPCRAP IT WAS SUPPOSED TO!”…anybody?

Well, that’s what happened to me with this book, at any rate.

When I reviewed Otherkin, the first book in this series, I can still remember the awesome feeling of how amazingly surprised I was with the book. I’ll be the first to say that I’m a bit of a jaded reader, and I have a LOT of cliché pet peeves that instantly make me dislike a book unless they’re done VERY VERY WELL. One of those is a boarding school setting. But Berry brought that in for Otherkin and I LOVED IT. I couldn’t believe it myself. So needless to say I had high expectations for Othermoon as well, and I basically wasn’t disappointed.

Othermoon picks up basically right where Otherkin left off. Dez and her mom and dad are moving away from their home to flee the Tribunal. The night before they move, Lazar breaks in but doesn’t seem to steal anything, and then Dez’s mom channels this weird thing from the Otherworld that claims to be Dez’s birth mother. All this weirdness ensues, which includes stealing one friend back from his abusive father and causing all sorts of problems.

And then Dez and all her friends end up back at a new school setting.

Honestly, I was hoping for a little bit broader setting with this book. The school was great last time, but I’m always looking for books to expand from this horizon. Granted, the actual school-ness of the setting never overwhelmed the book at all, but still. Personal preference.

I think my real issue with the beginning of the book was Caleb and Dez. Talk about moving fast. Neither of them could think about anything else besides having sex with each other for a good portion or the first part, and it was kinda creepy, not going to lie. I mean, they hadn’t seen each other for months and had only just met a little while ago. But since this didn’t last and wasn’t a part of the book for like 3/4ths of it, I passed over it without too much of a hiccup.

Once again, I was really impressed by Berry’s ability to wrap me into a story which wasn’t particularly new. I mean, one of the bad guys becoming good for a girl? Read that. Dez having an ego moment and thinking she has to do everything on her own, alienating her friends and Caleb in the process? Read that. Love triangle? READ THAT. But the thing is, I never lost interest. I never thought, “Oh yeah, THIS AGAIN.” I totally believed in the story line. Usually when main characters start going off on their own I start screaming “WHY AREN’T YOU TELLING ANYONE ANYTHING?” But Dez’s reasons made just enough sense that I totally believed them. I also totally believed the requisite couples fight that makes room for a new guy in the love triangle. Caleb got FREAKY, but believably freaky and also believably annoyed with Dez. As I was reading, I just couldn’t stop thinking, “I should have so much problem with this events” and being ridiculously impressed that I was totally buying the whole thing. It’s a hard phenomenon to explain, but basically Berry has SO MUCH of my respect for being able to do this.

Like Otherkin, Othermoon NEVER stopped moving. Despite all the crazy world stuff, it was never bogged down with info-dumps. Actually, if there is one problem with the world, I’d say that it’s that we don’t know ENOUGH. I mean, of course we know enough for the purposes of the book. I, as a reader, just need to know more. Like, what is Dez really? Who is that apparition that’s speaking through her mother, really? All of these things being left unanswered is vital to the plot, but I’m very impatient.

I really, really need to get my hands on book 3. I almost can’t handle how much I need to get my hands on book 3.

All in all, I still very much recommend these books to you guys. Othermoon gets only a 1/2 star less than Otherkin, simply because the romance in this one kind of threw me off, but obviously not by much. I legitimately still cannot get over how impressed I am that Berry can make plot devices I’ve seen before seem so interesting and keep me so invested, given that I’m so hard to please once I’ve seen something more than twice. Not only that, but the believability of the characters is supremely fantastic. You don’t always see this in a lot of YA lit. So READ THESE BOOKS.

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ARC Review: “Luminosity” by Stephanie Thomas

December 17, 2012

Luminosity (The Raven Chronicles #1) by Stephanie Thomas

Goodreads | Amazon

My name is Beatrice. When I was born, I was blessed with the Sight. I was immediately removed from my parents and enrolled in the Institution. At the age of twelve, I had my first true vision, earning my raven’s wings. And when I turned seventeen, one of my visions came true. Things haven’t been the same since.

The Institution depends on me to keep the City safe from our enemy, the Dreamcatchers, but I’m finding it harder to do while keeping a secret from everyone, including my best friend Gabe. It is a secret that could put us all in danger. A secret that could kill me and everyone close to me.

But the enemy has been coming to me in my dreams, and I think I’m falling in love with him. He says they’re coming. He says they’re angry. And I think I’ve already helped them win.

3 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Teen for this eARC! This book is now available.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: Nothing frustrates me like a book that has awesome potential but fails to deliver.

Sadly, Luminosity was just another one of those.

When I requested this book, I thought it sounded so ridiculously awesome. I began to worry a little bit when the first chapter was really info-dumpy, but I calmed down as I kept reading. The world in which Beatrice, or Bea, lives is really neat, even if at times it seems very vaguely defined. (Yes, I know: info-dumpy and vague in the same paragraph. Trust me, I have no idea how that works any better than you do and I read the book.)

The idea was SO COOL. There are these Seers who protect ordinary Citizens, but only some Seers have really clear visions. Bea has seen the coming attack of the Dreamcatchers, people who can see into the past and see peoples’ intentions. Oh yeah, and Dreamcatchers can, with a single touch, kill a person and take their energy. The Seers are taken away from their families as young children and brought to live in something called the Institute where they are trained in everything from weaponry to art class. Bea is considered a hero, because she originally Saw the Dreamcatcher attack coming, but then a Dreamcatcher named Echo starts entering her dreams and telling her that they need to save each other, not kill each other.

Oh yeah, and Bea can’t decide if she’s in love with him or her long time friend Gabriel. Love triangle alert. *headdesk*

See, for me, Bea is where all the awesomeness started breaking down. The first thing is that, from the second she starts having her dreams with Echo, she is totally in love with Gabe while she’s awake and Echo while she’s asleep. Like seriously, she makes out with both of them and finds nothing wrong with it. She is also a total spaz, always freezing up right when the team of Seers she commands needs her. At the end of the book, the choices she makes seem to have absolutely no sense behind them at all. They just … happen.

Actually, that could speak for most of the book as a whole. Things just kinda happen, with not a lot of explanation or sense. Some of the characters are clearly just planted to be killed, and trying to invoke an emotional reaction for their deaths. Grief does NOT explain away everything that happens for the randomest reasons after that. Besides the Dreamcatchers, the other major people in the story seem to have no reasoning for why they’re doing anything. They’re just bad, or they’re just good. I hate, hate reusing this analogy, but SERIOUSLY, things need to stop feeling like a National Novel Writing Month novel, where the author was speed writing and got stuck and then just decided ______ would happen just so the story would start moving again. With that randomness in mind, however, I must say that none of the “revelations” in the novel surprised me. I had them pegged very early on.

Honestly, I’m mostly just frustrated because I know the book could have been so much better. There were all these spectacularly awesome pieces, but they just didn’t get threaded together very well. I appreciated that the book was always moving, but I wish sometimes things had made a little bit more sense or at least have been explained. Worst of all, I found Bea as a character to be flat and uncompelling, defined basically by the guys in her life. I would read book too, Evanescence, if it popped up on NetGalley, but I wouldn’t go looking for it.

Books 2 and 3 in this series have titles, Evanescence and Obscurity respectively, but no release dates.

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ARC Review: “Greta and the Goblin King” by Chloe Jacobs

December 6, 2012

Greta and the Goblin KingGreta and the Goblin King (The Mylena Chronicles #1) by Chloe Jacobs

Goodreads | Amazon

While trying to save her brother from a witch’s fire four years ago, Greta was thrown in herself, falling through a portal to Mylena, a dangerous world where humans are the enemy and every ogre, ghoul, and goblin has a dark side that comes out with the eclipse.

To survive, Greta has hidden her humanity and taken the job of bounty hunter—and she’s good at what she does. So good, she’s caught the attention of Mylena’s young goblin king, the darkly enticing Isaac, who invades her dreams and undermines her will to escape.

But Greta’s not the only one looking to get out of Mylena. An ancient evil knows she’s the key to opening the portal, and with the next eclipse mere days away, every bloodthirsty creature in the realm is after her—including Isaac. If Greta fails, she and the lost boys of Mylena will die. If she succeeds, no world will be safe from what follows her back…

3 1/2 stars

Thanks to Entangled Teen and NetGalley for this eARC! This title is now available.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I was missing my fairytale lands. Yeah, I enjoy all this new and exciting stuff, but man sometimes you just can’t beat ogres, goblins, sprites and the oldie-but-goodies.

Given what I was told about Greta being a bounty hunter, I didn’t expect this book to open the way it did. I mean, yeah, it starts with her going out to rescue a goblin boy from a monster, but then instantly Isaac shows up and he’s like, “Hi” and Greta’s like “Ohmygod remember how we met like a fortnight ago and I was obsessed with you but now I hate you because you lied and oh by the way now for some reason you’re the king of the goblins you little liar.”

Ooookay then.

Of course I have to pick at the romance in this book. Of course I do. Because I can’t get through it without not. Because not only do Isaac and Greta have yet another annoying love/hate relationship that seems to be based on…uh…hormones? Let’s go with hormones since I can’t think of much else. I mean, after they meet for a fortnight he invades her dreams because he HAS to be bound to her. Knowing she’s a human. By the way, humans are blamed for all the ills ever on Mylena. So Isaac alternates from blaming all the world’s ills on her to being like I MUST HAVE YOU. Literally. His repetitions of “She’s mine” or “You’re mine” creeped me out.

And then of course there is the requisite love triangle. Which doesn’t seem to have any point at all, honestly. But I don’t like love triangles. At all. You probably know this, so I’m going to stop here.

The characters as a whole didn’t have much particular depth besides Greta. Many of their actions made no sense, or seemed forced. Isaac, especially, bothered me, both by the way he treated Greta and then the schizo way he acted at the end of the book. But I can’t explain that for fear of spoilers. Many of the background characters just popped on and off-screen, though I appreciate the attempt to give every member of the lost boys a little bit of personality.

The thing that kept me going was the plot pacing. As in, plot went GOGOGO! There’s no shortage of action in this book, and Jacobs isn’t afraid to put some blood into the pages. (No, not graphically, I promise.) I’m pretty sure even Greta herself is injured from like page 1 on. Fast pacing is always, always a plot for me. I mean, I finished this book in one day.

I’m still not sure what I think of the world building, though. On the one hand, I felt like I didn’t understand what was going on very clearly for the first part of the book. On the other, I really appreciated how Jacobs never info dumped. She even had the best opportunity, with the lost boys having no idea how things worked on Mylena. But Jacobs kept that to a minimal as well, and I really respect that.

All in all, I would recommend those who want to return to a fairytale land with lots of action and a lot of romance. It’s not one of those books you can read too deeply into, but that’s okay sometimes. It’s a fun, quick read. I don’t think I’d go out and buy book two, but I would certainly take the chance to request it on NetGalley.

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ARC Review: “Wilde’s Meadow” by Krystal Wade

November 30, 2012

Wilde’s Meadow (Darkness Falls #3) by Krystal Wade

Goodreads | Amazon

Happy endings are hard to find, and even though Katriona is in the middle of a war with someone who’s already stolen more than she can replace, she aches for a positive future with her Draíochtans.

Armed with hope, confidence in her abilities, and a strange new gift from her mother, Kate ventures into the Darkness to defeat a fallen god.

Losses add up, and new obstacles rise to stand in the way. Is the one determined to bring Encardia light strong enough to keep fighting, or will all the sacrifices to stop those who seek domination be for nothing?

2 1/2 stars

Thank you to NetGally and Curiousity Quills Press for this eARC! This book is now available.

Well, this is the end. Hopefully, if you’re reading this, you’ve read my reviews of Wilde’s Fire and Wilde’s Army. If not, spoilers will abound.

I did not like Wilde’s Fire. I’m just going to put that out there. I thought Kate and Arland’s romance was absolutely ridiculous and creepy, but I finished the book anyways. Somehow, for some reason, I also requested Wilde’s Army when it came out. It wasn’t the best, but it was actually surprisingly better than the first one. Maybe it’s because Arland is absent for a long time in that one…

For better or for worse, I also requested Wilde’s Meadow, because since I’d made it through the first two, why not? Unfortunetly, I was rather disappointed.

Kate and Arland are back in full swing for this one, and syrupy sweet. The freaky intensity of their relationship brings me to think of Twilight, which is never a good thing. In multiple instances, they leave people waiting and ignore a war so they can “enjoy being newlyweds.” Honestly, I prefer it when you’re fighting demons.

Despite the war aspect, there wasn’t as much action as I was expecting. Or, rather, when it happened, Kate wasn’t always actively participating. Sure, she did her fair share, but too many huge plot points in the novel were taken out of Kate’s hands and figured out for her. The amount of times that people had to lead her around to what she needed to save the world was infuriating.

There were also far, far too many characters, once again. Worse, these characters got an attempt at depth, but then nothing ever fully did them justice. I never believed in the change of the character of Perth, for example. He was always pretty rude, and otherwise flat. The senseless deaths of other characters also made no sense.

I think the biggest things that threw me off were the plot “twists.” But they weren’t really twists. The way they were thrown into the story, they felt like plot inventions, suddenly thrown in to move things along, like a NaNo novel.

All in all, it was a fight to get to the end of the book. The characters were always defeating my attempts to like them, and the plot was really jerky. I find this to be one of the few series where the middle book was actually the best.

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Welcome to my notebook of life! I'm a YA book reviewer (usually), a writer in my spare time and a rambler of randomness. Thanks for stopping by!

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