Cora is on the run from a bad situation and the only place she can think to hide in is with her dead brother’s marine friend. How is she to know that Cora is on the run from a bad situation and the only place she can think to hide in is with her dead brother’s marine friend. How is she to know that said friend, Stig (sans the helmet), is about to go into a heat and be turned into a dragon against his will? Of course the two of them sharing a bathroom leads to sexy times, and because this is a novella it happens very quickly.
I’m sorry to say this didn’t work for me. Truly sorry, because my usual gripes are absent. There’s quite a bit world building with a long and complex history that promises to be expanded in the sequels. The main characters are pretty well sketched with dreams and fears of their own even if I had trouble believing an immortal being that keen on joining a war after another. Due to the length of it, the story is rushed but it remains logical and believable within its world’s rules.
No, this time it was the erotica part of the book that failed me. More accurately, the erotica vocabulary:
…yeah, no. Because I couldn’t lean on the insta-lust crutch, I didn’t buy the insta-love angle either. I simply couldn’t enjoy roadrunner fast the romance. Too much of a stretch even for my active imagination.
It’s too bad, because had the smut adjectives and nouns been less repulsive to me, I’d have wanted to read more about the world Lopez has created.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Personal note: This review was scheduled a month ago and I promised the publisher. So, this is my last review on Goodreads. I've unsubscribed to all nPersonal note: This review was scheduled a month ago and I promised the publisher. So, this is my last review on Goodreads. I've unsubscribed to all notifications and emails, and I won't be logging into this account again. If you wish, you can find me on Booklikes, or the blog. Links are on my profile. Adieu.
****
Last year I was searching for something new to watch and decided to search the internets for recommendations. I started hearing buzz about Arrow and decided to give it a try. I loved the pilot episode and decided to stick with it as the show searched a firmer footing. I have my favourite characters like Felicity Smoak who keep me interested even when the main plot flounders with the clichéd romantic plot.
Arrow Vol. 1 offers a collections of scenes from the editing room floor in a graphic novel form, which explains its episodic nature. There’s the quick recap almost beat for beat from the pilot, but after that show creators show glimpses of things that were only alluded in the show like Helena’s trip abroad and how China White got that white hair of hers.
I’ve never read the classic comics about Green Arrow or any other comic superhero. I might have glanced at an occasional graphic novel, but I was always more interested in the written word only—I’m trying to learn better now.
This is why Arrow Vol. 1 works for me. I’m reading it just to learn more about the world the show writers have created and its characters. Reading this I got to see what had happened to Diggle before he was discharged and on what kind of tightrope Moira was balancing on. I especially appreciated the absence of detailed island scenes. Those flashbacks are my least favourite part of the show.
Mostly I liked the graphics. The characters resembled—even if only distantly—the actors of the show and even the fight scenes had the familiar choreographic feel to them. The panels were clear and detailed if somewhat grainy on my ARC copy. One thing I didn’t like was the neverending quest for Diggle’s skin tone. David Ramsey who plays Oliver’s bodyguard John Diggle on the show is black, but I couldn’t have known that from looking at most of the panels. At first he was depicted like a barely tanned white person—in Afghanistan—then he was noticeably black on the plane and Russian scenes, but soon went back to lighter shade of brown. The changes in colour couldn’t even be explained by differences in ambient lighting and colouring. It was simply sloppy work.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
This is a quick and easy read. It’s even an enjoyable romance novella if you don’t stop to think about it. I’m serious, either give your brain a holidThis is a quick and easy read. It’s even an enjoyable romance novella if you don’t stop to think about it. I’m serious, either give your brain a holiday for the day or you’re going to be disappointed with this one. Mild spoilers ahead.
It all starts with a misunderstanding and that’s how it continues as well. Michelle is just finishing her first week at her new job when a misbehaving printer—let’s just ignore the ridiculousness of that situation and suspend disbelief for the romance for now—gives her an excuse to flirt with a cute nerd she mistakes for a help desk. technician. He’s charmed and doesn’t correct her immediately. After all being a rich CEO of his own company has such an averse effect on a man’s social life. To his credit, as soon as there’s a sign they could become more than office acquaintances or friends, Noah aka. Sark decides to tell Michelle the truth about himself. Only he does it in the most spineless way imaginable.
He writes her a note but doesn’t leave anything personal on it from where she might recognise him. Then again, she reveals her lifetime membership of club too stupid to live when she thinks that the CEO of her company would write a personal apology letter to her but not to any of the other employees he’s about to make redundant. And that’s how the miscommunication that drives this story is sustained. He thinks he’s been honest with her and she thinks it’s okay to date someone above her just not her CEO.
As easy a read as this was, there were rougher moments there too. The euphemisms grated and the convenient coincidences that drove their story forward bordered ridiculous. No one ever referred to Sark as Noah in front of Michelle and they were quick to defend him when they found out about the lie of omission. There’s a difference between saying “he must’ve had a good reason” and “that doesn’t sound like him.” One is excusing bad behaviour and the other is postponing judgement until further evidence is provided. Still, everyone, even the couple who just met him were quick to help Sark to win her back.
Another thing that bothered me were the inconsistent characterisations with regard to money. Apparently since taking the company public and earning a huge sum, Sark has only bought a handful of expensive things for himself. Yet his first impulse is to buy her a new mountain bike for their first date. He doesn’t tell her that, of course, and it somehow makes it all better. If biking is such a big part of his life, Sark must know other enthusiasts who might’ve lent him a used mountain bike for the day. It mars her characterisation too. When Michelle decides to turn her life upside down once again, what does she do? Does she decide to economise and save every penny possible? No. She decides to take a trip home for the holiday—entirely understandable—and splurge on taxi drives. Very soon after—almost in the next scene—she’s taken a temp job to earn extra cash.
The worst part is that I couldn’t even enjoy her positive career development and ambition. Michelle showed herself capable and willing to work her way to the top, but it was overshadowed by her stupidity in her personal life. Worse yet, she (view spoiler)[ended up supporting his new career move and a start-up that was based on one new idea. I guess he could have had other ideas but the author made it sound like there was only that one and it was worth the risk of losing everything (hide spoiler)].
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Dirty talk doesn't work for me. It's unfortunate, because the narrator's voice leans on the graphic side in an overly-wordy fashion. At first I thoughDirty talk doesn't work for me. It's unfortunate, because the narrator's voice leans on the graphic side in an overly-wordy fashion. At first I thought Warren's writing reminded me of Damon Suede's in Hot Head because despite its flaws—namely wordiness and vulgarity—the writing is compulsively readable somehow. I can't quite explain it because the story definitely didn't suck me in.
It wasn't the characters either. Neither Blondie—Nathaniel Rice—or Caspar act like men who've grown up in a world where homosexuality is illegal. Blondie is too handsy and Caspar too talkative. Sex is their shorthand for insta-trust, but it's not believable in the world the author describes. Not unless the narrator has a death wish and nothing else in his behaviour indicates that does.
I mentioned vulgarity earlier, and here it passes as erotic, which it's not. It's really not. Unless you're one of the people who finds armpit sweat sexy.
The world building is crudely done but quite solid. It's explained in lengthy infodumps by the first person voice narrator's thoughts rather than evolved naturally through plot progression and dialogue. This didn't actually bother me as much as I thought it would. In fact, it was the reason I kept reading instead of DNFing after the first chapter. Then when the Nomads are introduced it becomes clear that this book is trying to be social commentary on the current situation of the sexual minorities and no, I just don't have enough faith in the author's talent to see that train wreck through.
I DNFed at 38%.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
”The problem, both in the West and behind the Iron Curtain, was a lack of imagination. No one was able to picture the worst-case scenario.”
That was fun. Slightly preachy, but it comes with the territory of stating the obvious about dire things that threaten life on earth. Also, the author—or translator—likes to use the word ironically quite a lot which makes things a lot less ironic. This could have been an intentional choice considering the subject matter.
Herzog starts with a short personal history and an explanation. This book isn’t about the most well known nuclear events in our history—Hiroshima and Nagasaki are mentioned in passing only—but about the lesser known chain(s) of events that led humanity to where we are now.
He talks about German scientists who were high currency in the nuclear game between superpowers before and after World War II. He talks about centrifuges, disasters and cleanups, the myth of tactical nuclear weapons, one man’s obsession, and nuclear tests in Australia as well as in Alaska. He talks about inhumane tests done in the name of medical science. The evolution of nuclear power and lost nuclear warheads are mentioned as well.
But what I found most fascinating weren’t the obvious problems with nuclear power—there’s waste, lots of it, and its half-life is 80 million years—or the ethical questions that come with it, nor was I particularly enthusiastic to read about the doomsday machines. No, it was the pacemakers.
Nuclear powered pacemakers. No need for battery changes!
Tiny problem is what happens after you’re dead. How do the authorities keep track of those plutonium batteries and do they end up in cemeteries or perhaps burning the back of an unfortunate orderly carrying a bin bag to trash. Oh, wait, that was the other interesting story. What happens when a company, a hospital acts responsibly but the government authorities do not? Four people die and hundreds suffer from radiation poisoning. And the death toll is relatively low thanks to an enterprising physicist.
I am somewhat familiar with the subject but people who hated sciences in school shouldn’t be afraid to read this book. There are a very few technical details and those that remain in the book are only there to further illustrate the historical context of each nuclear folly.
Because this book is more about the history and human stupidity when it comes to taking responsibility for scientific breakthroughs and how they're applied. This book is about the dangers of letting military prioritise between human lives, nature, and fleeting glory in battle. Or worse than that, not even a victory in an actual battle, just a show of strength.
To learn from your mistakes or the mistakes of others, you must first study history.
I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for this honest review....more
I grew up watching action films with my Dad just as I grew up reading HarleqThis review can also be found on Books as portable pieces of thought-blog.
I grew up watching action films with my Dad just as I grew up reading Harlequin novels with my Mum. Until I got older and broke out of the predetermined genre preferences, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson—before his descend to cray cray—were my childhood. Die Hard is one of those films I knew by heart and that has stood the test of time better than most. So, when I saw that the book that had inspired Die Hard was available on NetGalley I had to jump on it.
Nothing Lasts Forever was first published in 1979. Die Hard came out in 1988. The book focuses on Joseph Leland, a World War II veteran, retired cop, private detective, terrorism expert, and a security consultant, who just gave up flying his own place seven years earlier. Leland is divorced, widowed, and a grandfather of two. He never liked his son-in-law but has patched up his relationship with his daughter after he stopped drinking and is on his way to see her now. John McClane is a youngish married cop from New York on his way to see his estranged wife and two children for the Christmas. And he just happens to be afraid of flying. Both land in L.A., get a limo drive to a high rise and are in the middle of a phone call when the shooting starts.
As I said, I knew the story going in. There wasn’t a slightest chance that Thorp might surprise me with a plot twist, brutality, or gore. What surprised me was how Thorp filled the pages between the action scenes. Where Bruce Willis fills the solitary scenes with muttering and talking to himself, Leland in the book recounts his personal history. He reminiscences the war as he maps out the empty floors between 32nd and 40th. He laments over his failed marriage, his slightly skewed priorities in life, and friends he’s lost in the war and since the war. And there’s no question of which war he’s talking about. These passages could have easily been mind-numbingly boring but they’re not. They give Leland the room to think and the reader the feeling of time passing. And unlike John McClane, Leland is markedly in pain. He’s weary, tired and struggling each step of the way.
For all the details that the filmmakers changed—characters, relationships, making the company a Japanese conglomerate instead of an American oil company called Klaxxon (I’ll give you a minute to let that sink in)—I was more surprised to see the things that they didn’t change. From bare feet to the safe full of money, from the people thrown out the building to the explosions aside from snapped necks and led poisonings, it’s all there.
This book really is the bare bones of the film.
The film improved on the pacing and mixed some things up, like the bazooka attack happening much earlier in the film than in the book, but it also took a few steps in the wrong direction. Die Hard is a sexist creation and I’m not just talking about the unnecessary scene with a bare-chested woman or the titty pictures plastered on a service tunnel wall. I’m talking about female terrorists. The book has several, the film has none.
The motives and over all causality in the book is much more complex than it is in the film. Aside from the brothers, what motivates the terrorists and Hans Gruber especially is pure greed where as in the book Little Tony the Red has ideological objections to Klaxxon’s dealings in Chile. As the book focuses on Leland alone, it’s natural that the film adds to the character gallery—all additions men—and deepens a characterisation or two, but I would argue that what Al Powell does in the end of the book is far more complicated than any sob story told over the radio could ever be—and possibly worth an essay of its own.
For all their similarities Die Hard and Nothing Lasts Forever are two different creations that work well in their own mediums despite their flaws.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Yes, it tells about two rivalling families making candy to theThis review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.
This is a sweet story.
Yes, it tells about two rivalling families making candy to the point where you start to drool reading the descriptions—or was that just me?—but it also tells about overcoming past mistakes and accepting second chances. Forgiveness. Things Christian fiction revolves around.
I know, it’s shocking, but sometimes I try to read out of my comfort zone and anything to do with religious fiction is way, way out of my comfort zone. Sometimes it pays off, other times it doesn’t, but look at that blurb:
Lucy Kendall always assumed she'd help her father in his candy-making business, creating recipes and aiding him in their shared passion.
A young woman wanting to go into business with her father and to make little bites of heaven? Yes, please.
But after a year traveling in Europe, Lucy returns to 1910 St. Louis to find her father unwell and her mother planning to sell the struggling candy company. Determined to help, Lucy vows to create a candy that will reverse their fortunes.
So here’s the conflict. Not only is her father unwell, Lucy lives at a time when when women in business were frowned upon. At least if you were of a certain social class it was a no no. There are also other more personal obstacles than figuring out the recipe for the next best candy or how to sell it. She has the spirit but is it enough to succeed?
St. Louis newcomer Charlie Clarke is determined to help his father dominate the nation's candy industry.
I was surprised to see that Unrivaled was told from two alternating point of views and that of the two, I liked Charlie’s voice better. In a way it was indistinguishable from Lucy’s voice, but his actions didn’t make me sympathise with the “bad parent” or want to pull my hair out like Lucy’s did.
Compromise is not an option when the prize is a father's approval, and falling in love with a business rival is a recipe for disaster when only one company can win.
I don’t think this is quite true. For someone who isn’t willing to compromise Charlie goes along with his parents' plans and lets his life be turned upside down without a word of protest. Nor is his father’s approval the top most thing on his mind. Charlie’s more interested in learning why he left in the first place.
The rivalry itself was quite fun. Lucy especially did a few callous things to sabotage her competitor.
Will these two star-crossed lovers let a competition that turns less than friendly sour their dreams?
If you can’t guess the answer to that, let me introduce you to Agatha Christie, an author who’ll blow your mind. But in all seriousness, as long as we’re talking about the future in candy making their dreams look to be quite safe even if not in a way they imagined. As for the romance riddled with insta-love, the outlook isn’t as bright. I wasn’t exactly moved by the sweetness of that side of the novel, but that’s better for my teeth anyway.
It is a sweet story and I’m glad I read it but I’m ready to go back to darker themes.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
I’ve read a couple of Caletti’s young adult novels and I’ve loved them. Her work is lThis review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.
I’ve read a couple of Caletti’s young adult novels and I’ve loved them. Her work is like literary catmint to me, which is weird because Caletti writes about emotions and slow paced moments of change rather than adventurous plots. Her books are pure character studies of people trying to move, and usually I like the introspection that’s characteristic to Caletti, but here it doesn’t quite work. Here, it’s taken a step too far. The balance is gone.
”But he’s gone. He’s gone, and I don’t know what’s happened, but I know I wanted him gone.”
Dani wakes up in an empty house and takes her old dog out. She enjoys the morning and makes her own coffee for a change. She plunges into her personal history for a moment, comes back, and realises her husband, Ian, is gone.
Just like her YA books are about rejecting a bad relationship for a better self-worth—in the ones I’ve read at least—this book is about an adult, a middle-aged mother, learning new things about herself when her crutch, her husband, is gone.
The book is told from Dani’s point of view with first person voice. She goes through the motions of realising someone close to her has disappeared and beginning the search process. She talks to the neighbours, calls family and friends, and all the while she’s slowly working through her two failed marriages in her mind. She thinks about her own choices, she thinks about Ian’s choices, and she reflects on how those choices affected their children, and everyone else around them.
The problem is, that’s all she does. Dani takes a trip up the river Denial, climbs ashore, and sets up camp in Memory land.
”You learn, she says. You go from there. And then you change.“
Maybe it’s because of the set up—the agony of having to wait, to go slowly mad with worry and without having anything concrete to do—that Caletti relies so heavily on the introspection and itemising all the wrongs of Dani’s life. Unfortunately when the flashbacks are paired with inactive present, the book becomes impenetrable and boring. Caletti doesn’t even properly show the discussions Dani has with the police rather than tells about them in passing after the fact. (view spoiler)[So, she’s a suspect in her husbands disappearance that wouldn’t be interesting to the reader. Why would it be? (hide spoiler)]
The underlying story and the epiphany it leads to are good. Caletti even dabbles with an unreliable narrator, but when the balance is off everything slides to the side, just out of reach, off the pier and into the waters of the Pacific. The book is set in Seattle if you couldn’t tell.
Fans of Caletti’s work might enjoy reading this book, as long as they don’t mind switching the teenaged protagonist to her mother, but I hesitate to recommend this to anyone who doesn’t relish reading about thorough navel-gazing.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
There’s a difference between theory and practice. In science, theories are meaninglesThis review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.
There’s a difference between theory and practice. In science, theories are meaningless without the empirical evidence to support them. In fiction—no matter how brilliant the idea—the execution of a story is everything. Here, it fails.
In theory, reading about two worlds co-existing in modern Britain and reading about the adventures of the fae in the mundane worlds sounds intriguing. The possibilities of seeing different cultures clash and compete are endless. In practice, every author has to choose a line to walk on. I don’t think Emma Newman has any idea which line she’s straddling let alone how to tread on it.
The problem lies with the characters. It’s not that they’re particularly horrid—I actually liked that they were described either as ugly or dull—and unlikeable. It’s not even the fact that Cathy is the most frustrating, spineless, insipid heroine I’ve stumbled on recently. It’s that their characterisations aren’t properly supported by their actions. Both the fae and the mundane talk and think alike. Even Max, the most interesting character of the bunch, doesn’t quite act like someone whose soul has been disconnected is apparently supposed to act.
It’s like Newman created these rules for herself and then forgot to follow them. That is, if there were any rules to begin with. Never did I get the sense that the author had fully internalised and adopted this alternative world she had created, let alone that she’d fully applied it to the characters she was writing about.
And with that, whatever there may have been unique about the story—about the idea of a few young, rebellious fae touched challenging Nether’s customs and traditions—unravels into an uninteresting mess.
I’m not a fan of fairies, but I never open a book wanting to hate it. Between Two Thorns had its chance to win me over and it failed. I started skimming and speed-reading around 20% mark and only stopped a few times to read scenes with Will in them.
P.S. Every time I wrote the word mundane, I wanted to substitute it with the word muggle.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
This is a difficult review for me to write. While I liked the book, I had several issThis review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.
This is a difficult review for me to write. While I liked the book, I had several issues with it.
This is a gentle novel. It’s a slow moving story about a young couple who move into their new home and are on the cusp of new phase in their lives: They are about to start a family. Only, real life demands like work and economy conspire to keep them apart. Tom’s new job demands he travel far away and for long periods of time. And there’s trouble closer to home too. Namely Holly’s own insecurities about becoming a mother. That’s a good set up for a character centric story where a character faces her own fears and learns to overcome them. Unfortunately, the story shifts into something completely different.
Holly finds a forgotten moondial that gives her a chance to see eighteen months into the future. She sees her unborn child, falls in love, and suddenly loses all her doubts about becoming a mother. What bothers her from thereon isn’t her fears about being a bad mother, it’s her perfectly natural self-protective instinct—her will to live. Holly never doubts her love for Tom or for the unborn, un-conceived, child. She doubts her choice to put her own life first.
What’s worse, Holly confides in a total stranger without ever considering asking her husband’s opinion. Admittedly confiding in him about the supernatural time machine—sort of—would make her sound like a crazy person, but she could at least talk with him in hypotheticals. When writing out their five year plan, neither Holly nor Tom stop to ask the other a single what if question. What if Tom quits the job he hates and do something he likes? What if Holly can’t get pregnant? What if there’s a problem with the pregnancy? What if Tom was asked to choose between Holly and the baby? Who would he choose.
Brooke does a huge disservice to Tom’s character keeping him so far away from the story and all of the decision, and doing so Brooke also undermines her main character, Holly. She comes across like a selfish, manipulative shrew instead of the loving wife and would-be mother Brooke would have us believe in. Holly selfishly manoeuvres Tom’s career in the direction she wants it to go, she selfishly decides not to conceive and then changes her mind about it. And all this happens because of visions that could as easily be hallucinations of a sick mind as flashes from the future. She risks everything because she thinks she knows best.
The epilogue and the “about the author” part convinced me that above all else this book was written to be wish fulfilment. Nothing more, nothing less. A wish.
Despite all this, I liked novel. I liked the writing, the charm and the magic of it.
I received an Edelweiss ARC of this book from the publisher....more
This is going to be a “let’s dissect the blurb”-review.
Gunship pilot Captain Candace Bradford has worked long and hard to earn her rank and position within the male-dominated world of Air Force Special Operations.
This is the set up and since I’ve not read the first book in the series I’m going to take this at face value. She does crash a plane but technically that’s not her fault, so I’m guessing she’s worked hard to earn her wings but there’s very little in the book to show she’s worked particularly hard to earn her rank or that her gender made it especially difficult for her.
She's not about to let anything or anyone jeopardize that, let alone one sinfully tempting man who seems determined to cause her nothing but trouble. Even if she's starting to fall for him.
This too is part of the set up but I didn’t find it particularly well done. For being such a stickler for rules, she’s having difficulties articulating a denial. Even if she’s starting to fall for someone she works with, if the rules mean that much to her she should be saying no at every turn. She’s not. She’s offering vague denials, mixed signals, and avoidance. None of these actually work. There are other ways to show her inner struggle, but this author doesn’t spend any time on developing those feelings for Candace’s character.
As an elite Combat Controller, Staff Sergeant Ryan Wentworth is used to overcoming adversity in order to complete a mission.
Now that I think about it, this actually has some basis within the story. Ryan keeps remarkably calm during the action sequence as long as we ignore the utter unprofessionalism prompted by Candace’s presence.
Breaking through Candace's prickly exterior and into her heart is a challenge he can't let go.
This is the main problem with his character. He’s like a dog with a bone; he can’t let things go not even for a second. He pushes, he stalks, he doesn’t take no for an answer, and I’m baffled why would Candace think Ryan has anything remotely resembling a softer side in him. There are a couple of instances when the author glimpses into his psyche that could constitute as his more humane and understanding feelings, but they were sparse and easily missed.
But just when he's begun to gain her trust, they're thrown together in the field facing an overwhelming enemy force.
When exactly did that happen? I know when they faced the “overwhelming enemy force” but I’m at a loss to understand when she started trusting him and why.
Candace and Ryan find themselves on the run, searching the skies for an emergency extraction. But one dangerous enemy has an agenda in mind and he'll use whatever means necessary to achieve it, including using American forces to do his dirty work….
I’m guessing this is part of the longer plot that may have started in book one of Bagram Special Ops and continue if not conclude in book three.
Instead of character growth, this novel focuses on action and sex—the first being entertaining and the second being rushed. The romantic relationship is woefully underdeveloped. As I’m not an expert on military matters I can hardly comment on the accuracy of their portrayal within the book other than to say that the abbreviation jungle was in sore need of the glossary found at the end of the pdf I read. I actually hope the epubs have footnotes inserted in them for those who need them.
I received a copy of this book through Lit Connect in exchange for an honest review....more
The first quarter of the book was spent setting up the broken marriage of convenience and it was the most boring historical romance set up I've read iThe first quarter of the book was spent setting up the broken marriage of convenience and it was the most boring historical romance set up I've read in two weeks. Two weeks, because that's long how I tried to get through it. If the purpose of this was to garner some sympathy for the faithful wife, it failed. I wished the cheating husband had continued his cheating ways and stayed far away from England. When Jack finally shows up and the fireworks are supposed to erupt all we get is a lukewarm show of temper and a hint of cock-commentary. That's when (at 30%) I flounced.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Blame it on bouncing back from a five star book or blame it on taste differences in wThis review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.
Blame it on bouncing back from a five star book or blame it on taste differences in writing styles, but this book simply wasn’t for me.
I haven’t read the other The Keepers-series Graham co-authored with Alexandra Sokoloff and Deborah Leblanc, but I did like the paranormal world presented here. The set up was unfortunately—or fortunately depending on your point of view—delivered in an infodump prologue and it actually made me curious about the Others blending in the masses of non-believing humans. More importantly, it made me want to read about an elven character.
However, I was quickly disappointed. The world building I liked—the idea of keepers ensuring the peace among other races of paranormal creatures—but I couldn’t connect with the characters. Graham filled the beginning with repetitious lines and descriptions that quickly eroded my interest. As I read further, the less I cared about Rhiannon and Brodie, their budding relationship, and the mystery they were trying to untangle. I couldn’t even be bothered to look for the clues for the killer as I speedread through the rest of the book. On the positive side, my disinterest prevented me from absolutely hating the book.
I’m guessing that if you’re familiar with Graham’s previous work and like it, you’ll enjoy this novel too.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
I was hoping this book would somehow get back to the first, good part of the first book in the trilogy, Ashes, but I’m not seeing that happening.
InstI was hoping this book would somehow get back to the first, good part of the first book in the trilogy, Ashes, but I’m not seeing that happening.
Instead of focusing on Alex’s continued survival after the Zap and among the Changed, I’m now expected to care about a host of characters I couldn’t stand in the first book—the people of Rule. As glad as I was to see Tom back, the promise of his parts in the adventure just weren’t enough to keep me interested.
For a book thriving on gore and nonstop action, I found the first third very boring. I didn’t have a reason to care about anyone anymore and randomly inflicted horrors just don’t entertain me.
At 28% I’m giving up.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
I wish I could say I was disappointed, but I’m really not. I got what I expected to gThis review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.
I wish I could say I was disappointed, but I’m really not. I got what I expected to get after reading the first chapter:
A bunch of deus ex machinas tied together and with a nice bow on top starting with Ashley’s blindness.
I was positively surprised that Adams at least appeared to have done her research into blindness. There were two institutions mentioned and the way Ashley and her assistant, Lizzie, behaved rang true to me. Still, reading about spotty vision or hazy peripheral vision made it clear that Ashley wasn’t going to stay blind forever. That didn’t stop me from hoping that the author would surprise me.
There’s a slow build romance with the neighbours, Ashley and Mel, getting to know each other and become friends first. They’re both hiding from the world and trying to learn to cope with their new selves. Ashley at least was being mostly honest with herself, while Mel’s tendency to speak of himself in the third person was understandable but distracting. He had a secret to keep, but it felt more complicated than that; it felt like the character or the author didn’t really know who he was. I think this is why I found the couple’s chemistry lacking.
The writing, I mostly liked. Some plot details like Roamer felt more contrived than others like the initial avoidance of Ashley’s accident and the cause to her temporary blindness as well as the final confrontation. If the characters had acted naturally instead of being driven by plot points, Mel would have told the truth to Ashley before leaving. That would have only shifted the emphasis of their argument (view spoiler)[and there wouldn’t have been need for that awkward moment where Ashley recognises Mel from his picture before ever seeing him (hide spoiler)].
I hesitate too mention this because I’m not a native English speaker and I could be completely wrong, but some of the expressions used in the book sounded childish to me. Like Ashley’s comments about something being wowie zowie or aces or her and Mel’s nickname for Paula—Smelly.
The sex scenes did take a good portion of the book when they finally got into bed together, but luckily they weren’t gruelling. Not worst I’ve read, but not the best either. I was glad to see the unprotected sex addressed though I wasn’t very happy with the conclusion either.
The snappy, dialogue heavy text caught me and pulled me in. I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting myself into, but I soon realisedI liked the start.
The snappy, dialogue heavy text caught me and pulled me in. I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting myself into, but I soon realised it was something different. I was reading about this man who had made a new profession for himself and how he still had a connection to an old would-be lover, when I realised I had to check my emails. I put the book down, and the magic was broken.
I never really got back into it after that.
I’m not quite sure what this book is about but my guess would be that it’s about philosophy of relationships. Eric, the philosophical practioner (p.p.) has clients, not patients, who he helps by talking them through specific questions to find the preferably non-emotional answers to. If the question has more to do with feelings, Eric’s always more than willing to refer the client to a psychologist or a psychiatrist who deal with such things.
Eric specialises in talking about good and bad. The meaning of life. Calculated risks and why people should get out of bed in the morning. He also lets his friends win at chess and his old would-be girlfriend again to entertain the possibility of a relationship.
Mostly he just loves living in New York and feeding his cat, Circe.
I liked the cat. I didn’t like the so-called mystery (view spoiler)[because I didn’t particularly care for the character’s justification for her actions. For a moment there, I was afraid that Eric would find God and start blaming himself for someone else’s suicide because he didn’t think it necessary to hide his atheism. I understood that she needed to blame someone, I just didn’t agree with her reasoning. (hide spoiler)] I found some—most—of the client meetings boring even if they were used to demonstrate philosophy in action. Or maybe because of it. I liked the ending for Sheila and Eric. I didn’t particularly care about New York, the supporting character.
The book failed to show a bigger picture to me, and it took me far too long to finish a novel of this length. Just not my kind of book.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
Lately, apparently, I’ve been drawn to books where the main character has some kind of disability. There **spoiler alert**
I’m done. I’m just so done.
Lately, apparently, I’ve been drawn to books where the main character has some kind of disability. There was Seraphina where the main character was half human, half dragon and disfigured with scales, and then there was Sight Unseen, a promising m/m romance that ended up just being just an offending mess to all blind people (at least in the opinion of this sighted person).
So, naturally, when I saw this book about a boy who loses his ability to speak, I was intrigued. Remembering the Buffy episode Hush and how forced silence was used to enhance communication between couples, I was hoping for the best. That Jake’s inability to use speech would squash the telling and do wonders for the showing.
I was sorely disappointed.
In fact, I believe the only part where showing was appropriately used was in the detailing of Jake’s accident that led to the loss of his vocal chords. Quite literally.
That’s what not bothered me, the location of the hospital he was taken to did. Seattle. Oh, well, I thought. Other people can write books set in the general area too, and it’s not like they lived in there. Jake and his family lived outside of Seattle on an island name of which I can’t remember right now. Then there was Jake’s obsession with Air Force and joining up right after graduation, and his unrequited love for Samantha Shay, the good girl student with an absent mother and a father who’d walked out of their lives many a year ago.
All something I could ignore and blame on genre clichés.
Then there were the things that I didn’t like and that brought down the impending rating. There was the mockery of school assembly or forced AA meeting for teens, the casual slut shaming, the dismissal of language studies because he can’t speak—it apparently means he can’t read or write let alone hear and understand another tongue. And there was the overall quality of writing, which found poor and lacking.
All things that frayed my nerves until I read that line.
“It felt like currents of electricity were running through the two of us-“
That was one cliché too many. At 45%, I’m done.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more
You know those books that start out fine, not with a bang or a vortex that sucks you This review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.
You know those books that start out fine, not with a bang or a vortex that sucks you in and won't let go, but just plain well. You put it down and finish another book, a better book, a book by an author you love, and then you go back to it hoping it'll get better but not at all expecting to be wowed.
Sight Unseen was such a book for me.
I wasn't expecting high literacy, nor was I expecting to find my new favourite author ever. I was simply expecting to be entertained, but even in that Sight Unseen failed me.
It started with the little things.
Great mobile phone signal in the sewers. One of my favourite TV shows mentioned in passing. Mild misogyny I'd read without batting an eye in another place and time, but on a day reading about people defending rape jokes and remembering a government mandated rape for abortion seekers in a certain part of the world, I batted an eye. Those were the things it started with.
Then it graduated to fanfic clichés. It wasn't Edward pinching the bridge of his nose, it was Elena, Danny's sister, but who the hell pinches the bridge his or her nose if not a character from Twilight? It's a phrase I've only read in Twilight and Twilight fanfiction and even then it made me want to hurl my laptop through the window.
No, I'm not claiming this ever was a Twilight fanfiction, but that's where my mind goes in this era of pulled to publish fanfiction.
That kind of little things that kept pulling me out of the story and making me stop. And with this start and stop and start again rhythm I started paying attention to things that probably wouldn't have bothered me otherwise. They were all small things, not mistakes really, but things that made me think the author hadn't quite thought things through.
Like the cane. Yes, blind people use a cane to find their way around the world, but even in their own homes where they've memorised the layout? Granted, Danny's new to this blindness thing, but I got the impression that he's pretty much a shut-in, other than the occasionally visits to the police station, nearby coffee shop and to his sisters. Though, I was under the impression his sister visited him, not the other way around. And then there was the way sounds and smells were described. They were only mentioned when it was convenient to the author and scene in the book instead of being an integral part of how Danny lives his life now.
I'd complain about the characterisations further, but that's not really my problem. All the building blocks were there, they just weren't utilised properly. Why not you ask? Well, because apparently according to this author, what qualifies as character and relationship development is remarks about the characters' various states of arousal. Basically cock-commentary and that's it.
I'm tired of reading M/M porn without heart. Or a story.
That's the worst part. This had potential. The plot thread about ghosts and a poltergeist haunting Danny, giving him a new kind of purpose in life, and Logan wanting to expose him as a con man had potential. If we forget the misogyny angle, Sophie's anger and the confrontation were well done.
Except for the part that killed the remaining good for me. (view spoiler)[When Sophie possesses Danny's body, he temporarily regains his vision. This I could understand and even forgive, because it was only temporary thing--in the end Danny is just as blind as he is in the beginning of the book. What I could not forgive was what the author did with that sight. She used it to validate Logan's confession of love. You read right. The only way Danny could possibly believe Logan was honest and telling what he truly felt was by seeing it.(hide spoiler)]
I can't say more. I'll just rage and rant if I do.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy from the publisher through NetGalley....more
You've seen the title, you don't need to read the blurb. You already know what happenThis review can also be found on Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell-blog.
You've seen the title, you don't need to read the blurb. You already know what happens. Question isn't when or where or even how. It happens. Rape happens, and this is a story of one survivor.
This is a story about how that one moment changes everything. How it changes people around you, strangers as well as family and friends. How it turns reasonable explanations into malicious comments. How gifts aren't simple gifts anymore but something more distressing.
The rape itself isn't shown, but Valerie relives through it as she tries to cope with the ramifications. She has her family around her, her mother, little sister, and even her somewhat absent big brother. She has friends, and she doesn't have friends. There are other adults involved as well. Everyone has an opinion of what happened or didn't happen they either want to share with her or shove it down her throat.
And that's how it is in real life. Rape is everyone's business. No wonder so many--too many--go unreported.
While I loved the realistic touch of the story, the simplicity of the events unfolding, and Valerie's reaction to them, I also thought it could have been done better. For example, I doubt Valerie's little sister could have escaped the situation as unscathed as she appeared to both in school and at home. It was strange that the house, her home, where it happened never felt unsafe to Valerie, not even for a moment. I bought the anger, the hurt, the depression, guilt for feeling like a normal teenager for two seconds, and every other feeling, just not the ease of it.
I'm not a rape survivor, I'm one of the lucky ones, and yet one of the scariest moments I've read was in this book--the moment when Valerie has to face her rapist. I wanted to scream and shout how could it be?! when I know--or think I know--how easy it is for man to think like that.
I saw Angela suggest in her review that this should be compulsory reading in high schools. I have to agree:
Now repeat after me: no means NO! No exceptions.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley....more