Book Review: Who Fears Death

TITLE: Who Fears Death
AUTHOR: Nnedi Okorafor
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy/Dystopian
PREMISE: A girl discovers she has magic gifts and trains to eventually help save her people...
MY REVIEW: Nnedi Okorafor has been on my radar for some time. I just never really got to her until now and I have to say...I get it. I get why she's a thing. Her books are different. I know you're thinking "really? Because that premise sounds pretty generic to me".
But this book took the whole magical chosen one idea and kind of skewed it. It's much darker then most chosen one stories (which is probably why George R. R. Martin wants to adapt it for TV, this is totally his kind of thing). I will warn: there is rape in this story. There is threat of rape, there is violence, there are dark things in this. But it's all told wonderfully (and frankly handles the rape better then Game of Thrones does). Characters are interesting, and it's a very absorbing sort of book. But what really sold me was the ending. I was not expecting that ending at all. It's nice when authors surprise me.
So yeah, I am definitely a fan of this. I'd watch the TV show, but I don't have an HBO subscription. So, sorry in advance, TV show producers. But, I at least have a nice catalog of Okorafor's past books to go through, in place of that. I say this one was a great way to start off 2018.
WHO SHOULD READ: Game of Thrones fans, dark fantasy fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five surprise endings

Series Review: Flavia de Luce

SERIES: Flavia de Luce
ORDER OF BOOKS IN SERIES:
1) The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
2) The Weed That Strings the Handman's Bag
3) A Red Herring Without Mustard
4) I Am Half Sick of Shadows
5) Speaking From Among the Bones
6) The Dead and Their Vaulted Arches
7) As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust
8) Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd
AUTHOR: Alan Bradley
PUBLISHED: between 2009-present
CATEGORY: Packaged and sold as adult fiction, I say it's middle-grade but what can you do?
PREMISE: In 1950s England, in a small town, a precocious girl solves mysteries using logic and a love of science.
MY REVIEW: So last year I finally sat down and read the first book of this series and promptly fell in love. Since then I've been playing catch up and after getting to the eighth book last month, I finally am caught up. I'm still very much in love with it too.
Flavia de Luce is sort of a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Miss Fisher pushed into the body of a tween. The result is a delightful main character. On top of Flavia is a colorful cast of family members, and small town characters, who are all very entertaining. Basically, it's like one of those BBC mystery shows in book form, starring a awesome little girl.
The last book left off at quite a place so I'm very eager to get my hands on the next book which is coming out in September.
WHO SHOULD READ: Sherlock Holmes fans, BBC mystery show fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five awesome main characters

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

TITLE: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
AUTHOR: Rebecca Skloot
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Non-Fiction
GENRE: Biography/Science History
PREMISE: A biographer goes into the history of the woman who gave the cells known as HeLa cells.
MY REVIEW: This book is a lot like Hidden Figures for me: I know nothing about the science it is talking about because science is not my wheelhouse. But the author gives such a great in depth look into fascinating lives that I find myself not caring.
This one was also wonderfully organized. One fault I had with Hidden Figures that hindered my enjoyment of it a bit was that the author kept jumping around with their information. I appreciate the in depth research...but at least present it in a way that won't confuse me. This book, did what I wish Hidden Figures had done (Hidden Figures is still good though, guys, go and read it). The author does jump back and forth a little between time periods, but there seems to be an actual rhyme and reason for it.
Also kudos to the author for explaining some of the science in a way I get. As I've mentioned: science is very much not my thing (I got Bs and Cs in it through out high school for a reason). But she explained it in such a way that I not only understood it...but was actually interested in it. In short, I really liked this book. If you're just coming off the thrill of seeing Hidden Figures for the first time on DVD/Blu-Ray, I highly suggest this book. After you get to the Hidden Figures book.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Hidden Figures, science history fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five fascinating lives

Book Review: Room

TITLE: Room
AUTHOR: Emma Donoghue
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Drama/Thrillerish...
PREMISE: Jack has lived in Room with his mother ever since he was born. Things change when his mother decides they need to leave...
MY REVIEW: Room is one of those that has been on the list for awhile now. I remember it making a splash when I first started this blog, and then the movie came out a few years ago. I finally got around to reading it and...I don't know, I have mixed feelings about it.
The writing is damn good. Donoghue does a great job of getting into Jack's head. I can tell she did the psychology research of what happens when you've been captive for several years. She does a good job of showing us things through Jack's head without spelling things out for us. The way this is told is probably the most clever thing about the book, really. Story/pace wise...it's a little eh for me.
One of the main issues I have is that it's very slow. Especially in the beginning when they're going about their day to day things. I was a little surprised it didn't end with them getting out. After struggling through the last bit, I can't help but wonder if it might have been best to just leave it there because the last bit after was kind of tedious and felt tacked on to be honest.
So yeah, this was a bit of a mixed bag for me. It has phenomenal writing, so I may be checking out some of Donoghue's other stuff. But the story...just sort of bored me because it honestly wasn't really my thing.
WHO SHOULD READ: Emma Donoghue fans, you like character driven books, fans of the book Stolen
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five clever uses of the narrator

Book Series Review: Love by Numbers

TITLE OF SERIES: Love by Numbers
ORDER OF BOOKS:
Book 1: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake
Book 2: Ten Ways to be Adored When Landing a Lord
Book 3: Eleven Scandals to Start To Win a Duke's Heart
AUTHOR: Sarah MacLean
YEARS PUBLISHED: 2010 to 2011
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Historical Romance
PREMISE: Romances of three siblings in Regency London
MY REVIEW: I have spent the past year reading through romances. Most I haven't really reviewed because there isn't that much to say about them. Either they were fun and business as usual, or they were bad and I wound up ditching them. As in most genres the Romance category has its good books and its bad books. This series was the first one I started for my romance focus and it has by far been my favorite. The romances are fun and not anger inducing as some of the category romances can get. The sex scenes are actually hot. I also love the fun way MacLean writes her books. If you want a series that is bound to convert someone over to category romance, this is a good one.
WHO SHOULD READ: Historical Romance fans, Romance fans, Jane Austen fans
RATING FOR SERIES: Four out of Five scandalous romances

Book Review: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake

TITLE: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake
Book 1 in the Love by Numbers series
AUTHOR: Sarah MacLean
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Historical Romance
PREMISE: Lady Calpurnia has become a spinster and decides to throw caution into the wind and have some fun. This throws her into the path of notorious rake Gabriel St. John...
MY REVIEW: This is the first of many romance books that I hope to get off of my reading list this year. Sarah MacLean has been a popular author for awhile now. After reading this, I definitely see why. I enjoyed this and category romance books such as this can be pretty iffy with me.
I think a major reason why this works so well is that it doesn't try too hard. One of my problems with the Georgette Heyer book was that the author kept feeding us all these historical details that added nothing to the plot. MacLean does give historical details, but not the detriment of what we're all really here for: sexy romance. This romance is definitely sexy. The sex scenes were actually hot and didn't make me roll my eyes like a lot of category romance sex scenes do.
As a way to get back into reading romances, this was a good book to start with. I will absolutely be checking out the rest of MacLean's books now.
WHO SHOULD READ: Historical Romance fans, Regency Romance fans, Sarah MacLean fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five hot books

Book Review: The Long Quiche Goodbye

TITLE: The Long Quiche Goodbye
Book 1 in the Cheese Shop Mysteries series
AUTHOR: Avery Aames
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Cozy Mystery
PREMISE: A woman tries to clear her grandmothers name while running her family business.
MY REVIEW: Yes, another cozy mystery. What can I say, my library is full of them and this is part of my library project, so here we are.
Not much to say about this one. It's a cozy mystery. Lady with too much on her plate? Check. Quirky family? Check. Place to run (in this case a cheese shop)? Check. Multiple love interests to keep interest in the story going? Check and check.
So...not really much to say. If you like this genre, then this is one to check out. If you don't, don't bother, it's more of the same.
WHO SHOULD READ: Cozy Mystery fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five

Book Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

TITLE: Will Grayson, Will Grayson
AUTHOR (s): John Green and David Levithan
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Contemporary/Drama
PREMISE: Two Will Graysons, as different as can be, meet through circumstance.
MY REVIEW: Ever have one of those books where you like what it has to say more then the book itself? That's me and this book. Now, once again, I feel like had I found this book in my teen years I would have been all over it and probably have liked it a whole lot more. So I strongly urge teens to read this because I bet you guys will get more out of this book then I did.
As it is, I just found it a decent read, but don't have quite the strong personal attachment to it that others seem to have. But that seems to be my lot in life when it comes to John Green (and Levithan, whom I've also read before off and on). Ah well. I will say however, I adored Tiny Cooper with every inch of my being. Dude needs his own book.
So decent read. If you're a contemporary fiction fan, I would definitely check it out.
WHO SHOULD READ: John Green fans, David Levithan fans, Realistic fiction fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five guys named Will Grayson

Book Review: The Magicians

TITLE: The Magicians
Book 1 in the Magicians series
AUTHOR: Lev Grossman
PUBLISHED: 2009
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy, witches/wizards
PREMISE: A guy gets into a magic school but learns that magic isn't all it's cracked up to be.
MY REVIEW: Does everyone remember when this book came out? I do and the way everyone billed it as "like Harry Potter but actual literature" was a honest turn off for me so I avoided it like the plague. I'm sorry I hate it when literature snobs latch onto a book and use it to bash a popular book and act like that book is better. Especially as usually the book in question is actually quite boring and tends to be condescending to the very readers it tries to aim itself at. I'm sorry I don't understand the whole "oh it's fantasy but it's LITERARY fantasy" type of deal. Just because something is literary, that does not automatically mean it's going to be better. Literature is a certain way of writing a book. It does NOT MEAN "automatically better then everything else". I wish book snobs would get that through their heads. Okay, I'm done. I swear.
Unfortunately that attitude is kind of what this book has. It has that whole air of trying way too hard that most of these critically acclaimed books tend to have. It doesn't help that none of the characters are remotely interesting or even really likable in any way. No, I don't think characters HAVE to be likable. But you better give me something or at least some reason for why your character is the way they are. I see absolutely NO reason for Quenten's behavior. He even says there's no reason for him to be miserable! He just is. I'm sorry, but I have zero patience for characters like that. That's like ninety percent of why I loathed Twilight.
On top of the unlikable and boring characters, the plot itself was just plain boring. I got what the author was doing with it: magic doesn't solve everything. Which, yes. But you can come up with more interesting ways to do that message. I can name several YA book series and adult series that do this same message but in much more entertaining ways. But I guess since they aren't "literary" they don't count or something.
To be frank, I didn't like it. I got what it was doing. The writing was pretty.But honestly, I thought it was just average. Certainly not at all worth the hype that surrounded it when it first came out. It's a shame too, because Lev Grossman himself is kind of awesome sounding in interviews. I guess this is a case of liking a author's personality more then their books. Usually it's the other way around for me (love the books, don't like the author ;cough;His Dark Materials;cough;).
WHO SHOULD READ: Um...not sure. Literature fans?
MY RATING: Three out of Five yawns

Book Review: The Hangman's Daughter

TITLE: The Hangman's Daughter
Book 1 in the Hangman's Daughter series
AUTHOR: Oliver Potzsch
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Historical Mystery
PREMISE: A child is murdered and the hangman goes on the case.
MY REVIEW: This was...not really what I expected. Which I can deal with if what I got instead was much better. Unfortunately...it's not. I don't know about anyone else but I thought this would be about well...the hangman's daughter. I mean that's the title of the book, right? Heck, it's the title of the series! So I was under the impression this would be about the Hangman's Daughter going against convention and solving mysteries with her father's help or something.
Sadly, all the Hangman's Daughter does is hang around being pretty and distracting to the men folk who are the ones who do the mystery solving. Kind of disappointing no? I could deal with that, I mean this is in the sixteen hundreds, so I get that women can't be totally liberated but you could give her some sort of role to play still. Instead she kind of just is there as a love interest. It doesn't help that all the characters aren't very interesting and the mystery is pretty average.
It wasn't the worst thing I've ever read. But it wasn't the most ingenious thing either. It's basically just another historical mystery.
WHO SHOULD READ: Historical Mystery fans (who don't want creativity)
MY RATING: Three out of Five could have been better shrugs

Book Review: A Cast Off Coven

TITLE: A Cast Off Coven
Book 2 in the Witchcraft Mysteries series
AUTHOR: Juliet Blackwell
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Witches
PREMISE: Lily gets called to the local college to help with a ghost problem but winds up running into a murder (of course) instead.
MY REVIEW: This series continues to be entertaining and fun. Like Estep, this author gets that you have to have changing plots with the main character in order to keep people reading and she does that. She also goes into the background of some of the other characters as well.
Mystery was typical but it was a decent continuation over all.
WHO SHOULD READ: Cozy Mystery fans, fans of Secondhand Spirits
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five

Book Review: Waking the Witch

TITLE: Waking the Witch
Book 11 in Women of the Otherworld
AUTHOR: Kelley Armstrong
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Urban Fantasy, Witches, Mystery
PREMISE: Savannah, now all grown up, takes on her first major case which involves someone who may be after witches...
MY REVIEW: Okay, I confess: I skipped books 9 and 10 in this series. I'm sorry, I just wasn't really interested in them. Book 9 looked like another one-shot that didn't add anything new to the story and book 10 was another Elena book and I'm sorry but Elena bores me and I felt her story was pretty finished. So, I skipped them because I wanted to get to Savannah who was my favorite all along anyway.
I'm glad I did because I liked this one a lot better then the previous ones I read. It was nice having a book that made me feel like it was actually moving the plot forward which I haven't felt with the last few books. As I suspected, I loved Savannah. I actually think, she topped Paige as my favorite (but I still love Paige).
So this was a welcome breath of fresh air into the series. Now I can't wait to read the next one.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Women of the Otherworld, Urban Fantasy fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five badass witches

Book Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

TITLE: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Book 1 in the Inheritance Trilogy
AUTHOR: N. K. Jemisin
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: Yeine gets summoned to her Grandfather's court and the next thing she knows, she's named heir and is drawn into a ruthless game for the throne.
MY REVIEW: So I've recently added a new goal to my reading in order to motivate me more to keep up with this blog (I know I've been bad guys, sorry). That goal is to read more adult fantasy fiction. See, in recent years I've sort of abandoned it. Part of it was because I was reading all the shiny new YA available and reading all the ones there I missed, another part was the genre just wasn't appealing to me much anymore. Everything kept looking the same. But people have assured me, there's good stuff out there recently published and I do honestly feel bad about getting away from it. So this is me trying to jump back into the genre. If any of you know of adult fantasy that I should read/you think I would enjoy, published in recent years then please let me know. To give you an idea, you can search my blog archives for what I've read (or go to my shelfari page, which is linked on the sidebar). I've read Gaiman (can't wait to get my hands on Ocean at the End of the Lane), I'm reading Dance of Dragons very soon, and the Outlander series is already on my list. I did try Mercedes Lackey a few times, I just couldn't get into her books (I know, I know, it's not the books it's me). Perhaps I'll try again. Maybe third times the charm?
So one of my first forays into getting back into the genre is the Inheritance Trilogy which many online readers assured me was awesome and said if I liked Game of Thrones I was sure to like this. Thankfully I for once agree with the masses: this is pretty awesome and a great read for any of you suffering from Game of Thrones withdrawal. I love the imagination going on in this series.There's diversity, there's strong women (who don't face the rampant sexism that the women in Game of Thrones have to face which is nice), and there's political intrigue. It's honestly no wonder I liked the first book. I will say the narration style takes some getting used to, as well as the set up of the chapters (you'll see what I mean) but I kind of like it when authors play around with storytelling styles so I didn't mind it so much. But I know that's a thing for some readers.
Honestly, I loved this. I know however, it probably won't be everyone's cup of tea (probably why it hasn't become uber popular). But personally, I can't wait to read the next books which will hopefully be soon.
WHO SHOULD READ: Game of Thrones fans, Throne of Glass fans, those that don't mind dark fantasy
MY RATING: Four out of Five gods causing mayhem

Book Review: Venom

TITLE: Venom
Book 3 in the Elemental Assassin series
AUTHOR: Jennifer Estep
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
PREMISE: Gin finds her sister Bria in a unexpected way.
MY REVIEW: There's really not much about this series I can add that I haven't already said in my previous two reviews.
I love that Estep didn't drag out meeting Bria. I love that we don't get a dragged out waffling where Owen is concerned. Estep manages to avoid all the pitfalls of most UF long series and still makes it damn entertaining.
In short, still good. Can't wait to read more.
WHO SHOULD READ: those that have read books one and two, UF fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five snowflake necklaces

Book Review: Web of Lies

TITLE: Web of Lies
Book 2 in the Elemental Assassin series
AUTHOR: Jennifer Estep
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
PREMISE: Gin gets involved in protecting a client when she is attacked in her own restaurant.
MY REVIEW: Estep has basically become one of my favorite authors. Yes, okay, this series is very much business as usual UF. Original, it isn't. But it does what a lot of UF books fail to make me do: care. I actually care about Gin and these characters. I like them instead of wanting to smack them and there's an ongoing storyline that's not totally obvious and interesting.
In the end, that's really all I ask from my UF nowadays, particularly the overcrowded adult UF shelf. So much of it is alike that it's damn near impossible to actually find one that's unique. So for me, the trick is to get me to actually like the characters enough to keep reading past the first book and Estep accomplishes that.
So if you're in the mood for some kick-butt UF that isn't tedious to get through, I rec this series. It's addicting and entertaining. For the record, this would make an awesome TV show. Just putting that out there, Hollywood.
WHO SHOULD READ: Fans of Spider's Bite, UF fans, fans of Women of the Otherworld, Mercy Thompson fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five elemental duals

Ditched Books for January

TITLE: Undeadly
Book 1 in the Reaper Diaries
AUTHOR: Michele Vail
PUBLISHED: November 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Urban fantasy, zombies
PREMISE: Molly tries to be normal despite being a reaper.
WHY I DITCHED IT: So. Much. Forced. Teen speak. Like, OMG you guys. Seriously authors, quit this habit. NOW. Liked the premise of it, didn't care for everything else. By page sixty I was bored to death and annoyed at the same time. I think this is one for younger teens but anyone past middle school will probably feel like they're being talked down too by a author who thinks they're eleven.

TITLE: Blood Song
Book 1 in the Blood Singer series
AUTHOR: Cat Adams
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Urban fantasy, vampires
PREMISE: A body guard becomes a vampire.
WHY I DITCHED IT: Was bored within a hundred pages. Was the basic UF tropes all in one.

TITLE: Delusion
AUTHOR: Laura L. Sullivan
PUBLISHED: January 2013 (us release anyway)
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Historical fantasy, romance
PREMISE: Two sisters who are bored being stuck during the London blitz try to talk two magicians into helping out the war effort.
WHY I DITCHED IT: Honest to god this was a case of "it's not you, it's me". There probably isn't anything really wrong with this book. I just couldn't get into it for some reason.

Book Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

TITLE: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Book 3 in the Millennium Trilogy
AUTHOR: Stieg Larsson
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Mystery, thriller/noir
PREMISE: Lisbeth lies in a coma as Blomkvist does his best to gather evidence to help prove her innocence.
MY REVIEW: Every so often the hype machine does get it right which is why I don't totally dismiss hype even if it often leads me to several duds that I would have otherwise never read. This trilogy is an example of how hype can help good books get recognition and I'm sorry but without the hype machine I'm sure this trilogy would have been overlooked in the sea of thrillers that is the adult mystery genre. Because while I love this trilogy, I will admit it's not exactly a ground breaker for the thriller genre.
But it has all those things that made me love the mystery genre in the first place: complex mysteries, complicated characters, social commentary on several subjects, and it actually has something to say. To top it off the character of Lisbeth is one of the best developed characters I've seen in this genre in a long while, male character and female character wise.
Despite a few moments here and there where I felt the book dragged on a bit more then was needed, this was all in all a satisfying conclusion to a involving mystery thriller trilogy. I really am sad Larsson is dead because I would have loved to see what other books he would have had in store for us. But he left behind a great legacy with the character of Lisbeth Salander.
WHO SHOULD READ: Fans of Books 1 and 2, James Patterson fans, thriller fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five kick ass hackers
RATING FOR OVERALL TRILOGY: Four and a half out of Five

Book Review: The Talents

TITLE: The Talents
Book 1 in the Delcroix Academy series
AUTHOR: Inara Scott
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Urban fantasy, Romance
PREMISE: Dancia has a strange power that she does her best to hide but then she gets invited to a fancy boarding school where hiding isn't an option.
MY REVIEW: I remember seeing this one back when it first came out and I took note of it but promptly forgot about because of...I don't remember actually, I just forgot about it. But eventually I remembered and I picked it up last week. Turns out there's a reason I forgot about it: it's forgetable.
Literally this is every YA fantasy trope thrown into one: plain heroine (who somehow manages to get two guys into her despite being "plain") finds out she's special? Check. Boarding school with students who have powers/abilities of some sort? Check. Two guys into one girl who isn't really that interesting?Insta romance with no basis? Check and Check. There's also good old fashioned evil mean girl stereotype, main character hating on the pretty girls for no apparent reason that I can see other then her being really petty, and to even top it off plain girl is a orphan. Sigh.
I like the boarding school trope as much as the next girl but due to it being everywhere you have to make it interesting. This? Was not interesting. I pretty much yawned my way through this. If you're really curious about this one, I say check it out from the library and save your money for good boarding school books. Might I suggest Harry Potter?
WHO SHOULD READ: Um...those who really like boarding school books I guess?
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five "I've read this before" moments


Book Review: Sisters Red

TITLE: Sisters Red
Book 1 in Fairytale Retellings series
AUTHOR: Jackson Pearce
PUBLISHED: June 2010
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Retelling, urban fantasy, werewolves
PREMISE: When a wolf kills their family, two girls become werewolf hunters.
MY REVIEW: Ever have a book you want to love more than you actually did? This is me and Sister's Red. Every time I mentioned I was into fairy tale retellings everyone would tell me to read this. "It's especially good if you're a feminist" was also a popular phrase I kept getting. So when it was on sale on Amazon awhile back I downloaded it. Hate to say it, I'm not impressed.
Basically this is a female version of Supernatural but with sisters instead of brothers, and they hunt only werewolves instead of different types of monsters. Oh, and the sister's are given much less character depth than Sam and Dean are. The love interest was okay but kind of boring. The action was good but there were also plotholes galore (seriously, what kind of hunter doesn't have a car or drive at all? Especially if they live a two hours walk from civilization? Makes no sense, author). The dynamics between the sisters was probably about the most interesting thing going on in a otherwise pretty average plot. As for the feminist thing...I don't see it. Sure the sisters don't break down when they see a werewolf but I don't really see anything overly feminist about this novel other then that. It just gets points for not having heroines who cry every ten seconds. Doesn't make it feminist though.
Honestly this was just an okay but average retelling. I don't get what all the buzz is about. Maybe I'm missing something? Who knows.
WHO SHOULD READ: werewolf fans, Supernatural fans, fairytale retelling fans
MY RATING: Three out of Five crossbows

Book Review: Spider's Bite

TITLE: Spider's Bite
Book 1 in the Elemental Assassin series
AUTHOR: Jennifer Estep
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Urban fantasy
PREMISE: Gin is a assassin who always does the job, no questions asked but then she gets asked to do a job that doesn't smell right from the beginning...
MY REVIEW: I became a big fan of Esteps YA series Mythos Academy last year (and I plan on reading book 3 soon, I promise...it's burning a place on my Kindle as I type) so I thought I'd give her adult series a try. Luckily her adult books are just as enjoyable and entertaining as Mythos Academy was. Granted I didn't love it nearly as much because well...Gin is kind of hard to like, but in a realm full of look alike UF series, this one does stand out and is memorable.
While as I said, Gin is a difficult character to get a handle on, she is still one of the more fascinating ones to me. I definitely get that this woman is a assassin, she doesn't feel like she's just saying "I kill people and am badass" but then proceed to melt instantly at the hands of her love interest and become a big ole softy like so many so-called badass "heartless" women. But she also has the character that similar heroines like Anita "I judge every woman who isn't me" Blake totally lack: namely you like her dispite her flaws because along with the flaws she also has charms. Along with Gin, there's a interesting mystery, a surprising twist at the end, a somewhat turbulant and complicated relationship with the male lead, and it has Estep's charming and readable writing style.
In the case of this series, I give it a thumbs up. I'll definitely be picking up more of these books in the future (after I get caught up on Mythos Academy though). Estep is fast becoming a favorite author in the UF genre. I hope she sticks around.
WHO SHOULD READ: Fans of Mythos Academy, UF fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five badass female assassins