Book Review: Geek Love

TITLE: Geek Love
AUTHOR: Katherine Dunn
CATEGORY: Adult
PUBLISHED: 1989
GENRE: Contemporary
PREMISE: A slice of life sort of book documenting the lives of a family at a traveling carnival...
MY REVIEW: Oh literature crowd, sometimes I do not understand you and your taste. This is yet another one of those times. I've seen this book on all sorts of lists, hailed as super amazing and everything. So I was eager to read it. Unfortunately...I did not get into it. At all.
The writing is gorgeous. This is something the literature crowd does get right usually. They have an amazing ability to spot people with good prose. But here's the thing: just because something has good prose...that doesn't mean it's a good book. The prose here were lovely...the story...not so much. The characters were all jerks who I didn't enjoy spending any time with. There's emotional abuse and all sorts of messed up things happening here. The plot also moves at a snails pace. The ending leaves a lot to be desired as well. A lot of reviews I saw, said the ending was worth all the slowness of the book...I really don't agree with that assessment.
So yeah. I just don't get what people see in this book. All I saw was a book that had a great idea, but not such great execution. Which is a problem I find happens a lot in literature. But from what I can tell this is the kind of book people either really love or really hate. So I would not take my word for things and check it out of the library to see if it's for you.
WHO SHOULD READ: literature fans who don't mind slow books
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five beautifully written, but boring books

Book Review: How to Hang a Witch

TITLE: How to Hang a Witch
Book 1 in a series
AUTHOR: Adriana Mather
PUBLISHED: 2016
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
PREMISE: A girl who is a descendant from one of the judges in the Salem Witch Trials moves to Salem, Massachusetts....
MY REVIEW: Sigh, I wanted to like this one so badly. Really, I did. I honestly should of. It has witches, Salem Witch Trials, girls banding together...this should have been right up my alley. Unfortunately the author did every YA cliche in the book, so what should have been a fun ride, turned into a boring cliched mess.
Literally every bad YA trope is in here: girl moves to new town and is automatically hated for no real reason, adults are all incompetent and honestly should not be in charge of children (especially that principal who basically victim blamed the main character for being bullied), girls can't be friends nonsense, love triangles, insta-love, obvious villain being obvious, and so much more. I honestly lost track of how many times I rolled my eyes while reading this.
This book was just...lazy. I've read this book a million times and I've read books that do the premise better. The writing is okay, and I guess the plot gets the job done. But I was just so bored throughout it that I can't even call this an enjoyable cliche read. It's just..dull. With nothing new to really say or do.
WHO SHOULD READ: those that don't mind lots of cliches
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five cliche boring books

Book Review: The Sandcastle Empire

TITLE: The Sandcastle Empire
AUTHOR: Kayla Olson
PUBLISHED: June 6th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dystopian
PREMISE: A group of girls from different backgrounds escape their hellish prison to a mysterious island that is supposed to be a safe haven...
MY REVIEW: Oh this book...I have so many issues with this book I honestly don't know where to begin. I'm sad about it too, because if I could base my score on the author's writing style: four stars. The prose here are great. Unfortunately everything else from the plot, to the characters, to the pacing, and honestly just to what even the author was trying to say with this dystopian....needed a LOT of work.
This started out very promising. The first hundred or so pages are wild ride and we get to see four girls grouping together and being badass. Then it all just falls apart when the author brings in the world-building, brings in the main plot and just ugh. First she felt the need to do what I call the Disney Channel thing: have as many guys for as many girls and pair all of them up regardless of if there's actually any chemistry there (there isn't chemistry, FYI). The characters are all stock characters who are never go beyond their main purpose in the plot. Oh and diversity in this book is pretty much non-existent. Everyone is apparently straight in the future. There is one token Asian character who is treated like crap by the narrative.
But the real kicker for me is the dystopian set up. Essentially, this is a world where poor people decided to take over and throw all rich people into prison. That's right: it's a "stop being mean to rich people!" pearl-clutch.  The author basically tries to use this book as a cautionary tale to talk about privilege politics, but she very clearly has done no research on even what privilege is.
She seems to think privilege just refers to rich people. It doesn't. Everyone has some sort of privilege. I'm poor as dirt, but I still have privilege of some sort because I'm white. She also seems to do that thing that a lot of privileged people do, which is assume calling out privilege means we hate privileged people. WE DO NOT. I cannot emphasize this enough. No one hates you, okay? Seriously, get over yourselves. All people are doing when they point out your privilege, is saying you have an advantage over someone. Therefore, your experiences are more then a little skewed. So maybe stop trying to tell poor people that they're just being lazy or whatever and maybe just LISTEN to them when they tell you there's an issue with the system. I do not care if you grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth. I DO care if you use that silver spoon to deny that there are serious issues in the world right now.
This book....it just bugs me so much. It had so much potential, but the author wasted it with poor research and poor world-building/characters/pacing/and many other things. It was just a disappointment all over. It's a shame, because Olson again has great prose. She just needs to work on...pretty much everything else.
WHO SHOULD READ: Eh...those who don't mind bland and poorly thought out dystopians?
MY RATING: Two out of Five sad sighs

Book Review: Royal Bastards

TITLE: Royal Bastards
AUTHOR: Andrew Shvarts
PUBLISHED: May 30th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A group of bastard children band together to save their kingdom...
MY REVIEW: Sigh. I wanted to like this book so badly. To be fair to the author: if I turned off my brain while reading, and stopped noticing how literally EVERYTHING in this book has been done before, and didn't wind up comparing the two, I might have been able to enjoy it more. But sorry, I don't do that while reading. Or consuming any forms of entertainment really. I like to think about the story and all of that.
So, I'm sorry to say: I did not enjoy this one. The world building is paper-thin and again, stuff that has been done before. The characters are typical stock characters that again, I've seen done before (in much better, more fleshed out ways). Every story line I was able to call from chapter two. It was that predictable.  That's not even going into how awkward it was to have teenagers in a medieval fantasy setting using modern language and slang.
The story isn't offensive. Nothing bothered me. It's just SO BLAND. I'm honestly really surprised at the high rating this is getting on Goodreads. Because frankly, I personally can't give this book more then two and a half stars. That's even with me being lenient and taking into account that this is the author's first book.
WHO SHOULD READ: Eh...if you don't mind bland fantasy books?
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five this could have been so much better then it was feelings

Book Review: The Sense of an Ending

TITLE: The Sense of an Ending
AUTHOR: Julian Barnes
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Contemporary/Drama
PREMISE: A man thinks back over his life, particularly some incidents in his youth.
MY REVIEW: This book is a perfect example of why I scoff when literature snobs try to tell me a literature book is always better then anything else simply because it's literature. Yeah, no. There are poor literature books out there, just like every other genre.
In this book's defense, it's not that it's really bad. There are some beautiful prose here. I'm sure there's an audience somewhere for this book. I'm just...not that audience. Sorry, I like things to actually happen in a story. In this one...hardly anything happens. It is less then two hundred pages and it felt like a slog to get through, that's how bored I was while reading it. Once again: all the pretty writing in the world is not going to help you if your story is dull. I know I keep repeating this, but apparently, it needs repeating. I'm not even going to go into the annoying way this book treated its female characters. We'd be here all day.
So yeah...I was not a fan of this. I don't think it's the worst thing ever. Again, there are some really poignant lines in it. But that is not enough to make me actually enjoy reading it. I really don't understand how they're going to be able to make a movie out of this (it comes out in March, hence why I read this at all) as again: nothing much really happens. I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of changes.
WHO SHOULD READ: Literature fans, Virgin Suicide fans
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five snores

Book Review: Exit, Pursued By Bear

TITLE: Exit, Pursued By Bear
AUTHOR: E. K. Johnston
PUBLISHED: March 15th, 2016
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Realistic Fiction, Drama
PREMISE: A girl gets drugged at her summer cheerleading camp and finds out she was raped while she was drugged and deals with the fallout.
MY REVIEW: I wanted to like this book so much more then I did. I don't think every book dealing with rape has to be like say...Speak where bad things upon bad things happen to the main character.
That said...this was like the opposite of Speak. The rape was literally the only bad thing to happen to the character. Afterwards, she cried, then basically went on with her life with little to no fuss. Which...okay. That's great. Everyone handles situations like this differently. There are rape survivors who are able to function perfectly fine afterwards. But...this book kind of went overboard to the point that there was basically no conflict in the book whatsoever. The result is frankly a very idealized and thus very boring book.
Honestly, the more I think about this book, the more it bugs me. I'll give the author points for trying. But this was honestly...just too unrealistic and idealized for my taste. Also a tad insulting for those rape survivors who don't have the easy access to care, a supportive environment, etc. such as this very privileged character had.
WHO SHOULD READ: Um....I don't know. People who want an idealized handling of rape I guess?
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five frowns

Book Review: The Paris Mysteries

TITLE: The Paris Mysteries
Book 3 in the Confessions series
AUTHOR: James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
PUBLISHED: 2014
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Mystery
PREMISE: Tandy and her family are now in Paris and Tandy finds more skeletons in the family closet.
MY REVIEW: Wow. That is not a good wow. I don't think I've ever had a series belly flop so hard on me like this. I never kidded myself. This series was never great reading. But its good points tended to overshadow the bad ones. This time however....there was more bad then good.
For starters, everyone was out of character. These characters were virtually unrecognizable from the characters I had come to adore from the first two books. Especially C. P. Don't get me started on how they ruined C. P. What happened with her is textbook character assassination. Character assassination that made no sense.
There is just one more book left, but honestly? I'm done. This series jumped the shark for me.
WHO SHOULD READ: those that have read the first two but tread lightly
MY RATING: Two out of Five bad what the hells

Book Review: Thyme of Death

TITLE: Thyme of Death
Book 1 in the China Bayles series
AUTHOR: Susan Wittig Albert
PUBLISHED: 1992
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Cozy Mystery
PREMISE: A former lawyer who owns a shop gets involved when an apparent suicide of a close friend is in fact a murder.
MY REVIEW: So, here's my weekly read the through the library find. I...wasn't that wild about this one. To be honest, it's entirely me. There's nothing really WRONG about the book. It was just a bunch of little things that bugged me that kept me from enjoying it.
For one...it's pretty dated, particularly in attitude. I can absolutely tell a middle-aged white conservative lady wrote this. And no, there's nothing wrong with being a middle-aged white conservative lady. But it did mean that I spent a majority of the book wanting to bang my head on the wall at some of the nonsense going on in the book. For instance there's a conversation about guns that makes me cringe. I'm trying to keep in mind that this woman is from Texas and she wrote this pre-Columbine and not in this day and age where there's a shooting every damn week. But it did make me groan nonetheless (I'm pro-gun control. No, I don't want to take away your precious guns, but you can't honestly tell me you need to take a gun into a freaking Target).
Then there's the air of judgement that tended to come every time China spoke about someone who didn't behave "appropriately". This someone was almost always a woman. I also can't help but notice how strange it is that everyone in this town (a college town, mind you, not some small Stars Hollow ville place) was white. Literally, everyone. Oh, and don't get me started on the treatment of the revelation that the victim was a lesbian. It made it out to be some scandalous thing, and then the author did the preference bs. Being LGBT is not a preference/lifestyle choice people. Being LGBT is a part of who that person is. They do not choose it. Basically, this book was trying to be feminist (or what the author thought feminism was at the time), but really it kind of failed. Miserably. That's not even going into the fact that the main character BURNS EVIDENCE AT THE END. What self-respecting former lawyer burns evidence? I don't care if you're trying to protect someones image, you don't freaking do that.
Now, this series is still going on apparently, so for all I know the author has changed stuff and fixed the problematic things (people can change their viewpoints, it happens). However, I don't particularly care enough to find out as other then getting annoyed at the bad feminism, I was pretty bored through out this really predictable mystery.
WHO SHOULD READ: conservative cozy mystery fans
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five yawns

Book Review: The Jewel

TITLE: The Jewel
Book 1 in The Lone City Trilogy
AUTHOR: Amy Ewing
PUBLISHED: September 2nd, 2014
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A girl who is raised to be a surrogate gets bought. Has forbidden romance in difficult times.
MY REVIEW: I'll sum this book up like so: it's trying to be A Handmaiden's Tale, but it's more like The Selection combined with The Chemical Garden Trilogy. Which means, I didn't like it very much.
It's readable. I'll give it that. I just wish we would get away from these fantasy/dystopians that have this great set up and then do everything they can to focus on a boring stock romance instead of the great idea going on. It doesn't help that this came off as pretty anti-feminist. Or at least what conservatives think feminists are. Because this society was basically women in charge, yet the women in charge were all horrible and the ones forcing these girls to get pregnant for them. At one point one of the woman makes fun of her husband and says "that's why you don't leave men in charge." Literally these women are stereotypes of what people think feminists are like. Maybe she didn't mean it to be anti-feminist, but that's what it came off as.
On top of that, everything in this is just...uninspired. Again, it's readable, the author has decent writing skills. The story has just been done before. Not just in the two series I mentioned either. It also does all the usual YA tropes: love triangle, insta-love with no basis (that leads to mentioned boring stock romance), stock characters, and again, a BORING plot that doesn't get interesting untill the last few chapters and even then, it wasn't enough to make me want to get the next book. Honestly...this was just a lazy book that could have been better had the author put a wee bit more original thought into it. But again, I did see potential in her writing skills. Perhaps she'll be like DeStafano: have a slightly mediocre first series then have a much more interesting second series because her writing has become more polished.
WHO SHOULD READ: The Selection fans, Chemical Garden Trilogy fans
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five disappointed sighs

Book Review: Red

TITLE: Red
AUTHOR: Alison Cherry
PUBLISHED: October 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Realistic Fiction...sort of, Parody (was supposed to be anyway)
PREMISE: In a town where redheads are revered, Felicity has a dark secret: she's not a redhead. But if anyone finds out, her popularity is in severe jeopardy.
MY REVIEW: It pains me to say this, but this one was sadly, kind of a mess. I say sadly, because this could have been great. Subversive, at the very least. Unfortunately, it fell entirely flat and that was mostly due to its set up.
I admit, I was wary of this one mostly because the scenario of people discriminating against you for not having red hair (which by the way, is a pretty rare natural hair color) seemed ridiculous. But I gave it a chance because sometimes ridiculous premises can work out well (look at Hunger Games). Unfortunately, this was very much a case of not thought through. Apparently, the redhead thing only happens in this particular town. Apparently, no one in the town thinks it's bizarre when the rest of the world doesn't treat non red heads like dirt. No reason is actually given for why red heads are even considered special! They just are in this place for some reason. Not helping matters, is the main character, who isn't that likable, uses the system to her advantage, and mostly fights just to keep her popularity. Not at all against a system that is wrong. Oh, and the kicker? The blackmailer who is fighting against the system is treated like the horrible one. Oh, the character does go through SOME sort of revelation at the end. But she seriously never out right admits that the blackmailer has a very good point. She's just miffed that she got dragged into all of this.
The biggest surprise for me though, came when I went to do background info on this book. Turns out, this was supposed to be a parody. A parody of what, I don't really know. But apparently it was. The thing about parodies though, particularly written ones, is that I'm supposed to know as I'm reading it that it is a parody. If I don't think it is at all while reading and wind up surprised to learn that it was...that kind of implies that this is not a good parody. This read like a regular book. Not like a parody at all.
So...this was a disappointment all around for me. Cherry's actual writing is okay (has good grammar, dialogue, etc.) and it was a interesting idea...the execution of the story just fell entirely flat.
WHO SHOULD READ: Um...honestly, I have no clue who to rec this too, sorry.
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five dyed hair jobs

Book Review: Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer

TITLE: Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer
AUTHOR: Katie Alender
PUBLISHED: September 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Mystery, Paranormal
PREMISE: A girl travels to Paris just as people are being beheaded by a serial killer.
MY REVIEW: I confess, I was very disappointed in this one. I had read the Bad Girls Don't Die series and really enjoyed it. It was silly, yes, but it was sort of a self-aware silly that had some great social commentary squeezed into there as well. So I was expecting more of the same here.
Unfortunately...the author went a different route then expected and while sometimes that can be a good thing (such as The Dark Unwinding series), in this case...it was not. It was more of a disappointment. From the cover/summary I was expecting a awesome mystery about Marie Antoinette who goes around beheading people. Instead, this is more about Colette and her annoying friends. Which, okay. I could get behind a book saying being popular isn't everything under the sun. But this one did it in a particularly condescending way. Especially where Hannah was concerned. God, what a two-dimensional character Hannah was. Literally she was just there for the reader to hate on. She had no real use whatsoever other then to say "don't be like this girls! Being like this is bad!"
Then there's the fact that, Colette is just plain unlikable. Even after she gets the whole "lesson about popularity" thing. Then there's the apologetic attitude towards Marie Antoinette herself which drives me nutty. Yes, Marie was handed a raw deal politically (she didn't exactly ASK to be queen of France). No, she wasn't AS bad as people said. But...she was still bad. She still was responsible for a lot of crap. To wave away all she did and say the peasants were just being unfair about her and using her as a scapegoat...um no. That shows a complete lack of understanding about what was going on during that time period. Yeah, sorry, the peasants had every right to revolt and be mad at her. I may not be into the painting Marie as a heartless villain thing that history likes to do, but I'm also not into the excusing all the bad stuff because people were "unfair" to her thing that Marie sympathizers like to do either. This book did that a LOT and I could tell that was mostly author opinion and not actual use of facts/research/character opinion.
There were some good things about it. The mystery was entertaining. The descriptions of Paris were nice. I liked Audrey. But this ultimately wound up being not as awesome as it could have of been.
WHO SHOULD READ: Katie Alender fans
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five could have been better sighs

Book Review: Gone Girl

TITLE: Gone Girl
AUTHOR: Gillian Flynn
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Mystery
PREMISE: A woman goes missing and her disappearance brings out all sorts of dirty little secrets.
MY REVIEW: Dear Best Seller List: well, here we are again. This is yet another book you swore to me up and down was spectacular, oh so suspenseful, wonderfully written, etc. etc. ;insert hyperbole here; Once again, I am stuck asking: did we read the same book? Because...yeah, I don't get it. Which doesn't always mean anything. Sometimes there are books that are good that are just not for you. I don't like Wuthering Heights all that much but Wuthering Heights is beautifully written and I totally understand why it became a classic. It's just that self-absorbed, star-crossed lovers, who suffer due to their own stupid actions aren't really my thing.
But see, this is a mystery! That's totally my genre! I should love this. But...I kind of hated every minute of it. I get it author, people are horrible to each other, including to their spouses. If you thought this was brand new information and you were being revolutionary, you really weren't. But hey, I can deal with horrible characters if maybe the plot is decent. But alas...this is predictable mystery du jour that ends pretty much how I predicted it would when stalker guy was mentioned early on. On top of that, this was an extremely judgmental book. It judged EVERYONE. But it was especially harsh on women to the point of being vaguely sexist. Considering this was written by a woman, that's mildly disappointing.
I just don't understand at all how this became a best seller? The writing isn't that great. There's nothing really engaging about the story. It's predictable as hell (aside from that makes no sense ending) and made me eye twitchy as I read it. Why on earth do people like this so much? To the point that there's going to be a movie next year? I just...don't understand the book world sometimes.
WHO SHOULD READ: Gillian Flynn fans, uh...if you want to I guess
MY RATING: Two out of Five characters I want to strangle

Book Review: Relic

TITLE: Relic
Book 1 in The Books of Eva Trilogy
AUTHOR: Heather Terrell
PUBLISHED: October 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy/Dystopian
PREMISE: Hoping for answers, a girl takes her brother's place in a dangerous game...
MY REVIEW: Okay YA summary authors, please repeat after me: I will not try to make a reader think this is going to be anything like Game of Thrones ever again. Because seriously, no YA series is ever going to be like Game of Thrones because Game of Thrones is adult fiction. It can go where YA can't because...honestly I'm still a little fuzzy on the rules that YA seems to have upon itself but I just know that there's very little chance of any YA series matching Game of Thrones when it comes to bloodshed/what the hellness/etc. Promising me that this book will do that, is basically setting me up for disappointment. This is like the third YA book I've tried that promised me Game of Thrones for YA and failed to deliver. That isn't even going into the fact that this has NOTHING to do with Game of Thrones. I can sort of see the Hunger Games comparison. But where the hell did the Game of Thrones comparison come in? Have you people even READ Game of Thrones? Because it's got nothing in common with this. At all.
Honestly...this book isn't even Hunger Games league. It's got its moments but there are so many plot holes that I just couldn't get into it. It also relied on the usual YA tropes: love triangle, girl being able to do everything magically, etc. Also, don't get me started on the rampant sexism in the society. I'm sorry but if you're going to have deep sexism that is totally accepted like this in a future society, you better give me a damn good reason for it. There wasn't any reason given. It was just there. Why? Who knows. I do know it made me side-eye the author hard.
All of this combined with flat characters and a very predictable plot made for a rather boring book. I probably won't be reading the rest.
WHO SHOULD READ: Hunger Games fans looking for lulz
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five sighs

Book Review: The Infinite Moment of Us

TITLE: The Infinite Moment of Us
AUTHOR: Lauren Myracle
PUBLISHED: August 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Romance, Realistic Fiction
PREMISE: Girl meets boy basically.
MY REVIEW: I confess, I never quite got around to reading Shine last year despite everyone reccing it right and left. It's on the list, believe me. It's just one of those that's not really a priority read for me. When I saw Myracle had another out this year, I thought I'd give it a try to at least see how I like her writing despite the fact that contemporary romance is honestly not my genre at all. Sometimes I like to push myself and read books that I otherwise wouldn't normally read. Every so often, that works in my favor (like with Anna and the French Kiss). But a lot of times it backfires on me.
This one, sadly, was a backfire. I just plain didn't like it. I liked the writing style for sure. Myracle has a wonderful way of writing that makes me think that maybe Shine will be way better then this. I hope so because this was a aggravating book for me. The characters drove my last nerve. I didn't believe the insta love for a second. The story was also predictable as hell and thus kind of boring.
So this one was a bust. I may still give Shine a shot, because as I said, I liked the writing style. Unfortunately, writing style alone, cannot carry a book.
WHO SHOULD READ: Contemporary Romance fans (who don't mind cliches)
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five yawns

Book Review: Furious

TITLE: Furious
AUTHOR: Jill Wolfson
PUBLISHED: April 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Urban Fantasy, Mythology redux
PREMISE: Three girls have had enough of the rotten treatment they're getting in their school and become furies.
MY REVIEW: Sigh. WHY is it so hard for YA to do a decent book with furies? The only books I've read that have done furies in a logical/tolerable way is the Starcrossed series and the furies weren't even the main thing going on in that book.
Like another fury book, Fury, this one tries to tie in furies to modern day high school. It's a great concept but once again: bad execution. The writing is decent and I like how the author tried to follow the greek tragedy formula but she made the same mistake of Fury: she didn't make her characters likable. I do get that not all characters HAVE to be the best person in the world. I mean if that were the case, Game of Thrones wouldn't be popular. But you should at least make them tolerable or help the reader understand where they're coming from and why they are acting the way they are. A lot decisions the girls made in this book didn't make one lick of sense to me and that's mostly because the characters are poorly developed stereotypes who aren't given clear personalities.
The take on furies was interesting, but the rest of it was just a mess. I really wanted to like this one more then I did. Maybe from now on I'll just avoid YA books with furies. It seems YA doesn't really know what to do with them.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of the Fury Trilogy, greek myth fans
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five hot messes

Book Review: Legacy

TITLE: Legacy
Book 1 in the Legacy series
AUTHOR: Molly Cochran
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Urban Fantasy, Witches
PREMISE: Girl goes to boarding school. Discovers she's special.
MY REVIEW: If that premise I gave sounds like every other YA book you've read you would be right. This book has what I like to call Attack of the Tropes syndrome. Literally it is all the YA cliches rolled into one.
I would be able to forgive this if it had something to offer like maybe good writing or fun characters. Heaven knows, I've liked my share of cliche ridiculous things (you don't know how pumped I am for the new Star Trek guys). But these characters are all boring and cliche as well. They never wander outside their cookie cutter stereotype and the book itself never veers off the predictable path it is set on from page one.
Basically this was one huge disappointment. Because this idea could have been awesome. Also the writing? Not the best. Which is weird when you consider that the author has published over five books and is a bestseller to boot. My only theory is she felt she had to dumb down the book for a YA audience which is almost as irritating as bad writing.
WHO SHOULD READ: those that don't mind cliches upon cliches
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five cliches

Book Review: Beta

TITLE: Beta
Book 1 in the Beta series
AUTHOR: Rachel Cohn
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dystopian, clones, experiments
PREMISE: Elysia is a clone in a paradise world where clones are for working all the small jobs that humans don't care for.
MY REVIEW: I have never read anything that Rachel Cohn has written on her own. I read Nick and Norah back in the day but she co-wrote that with David Levithan and while I found Nick and Norah enjoyable (and totally rec the movie which is adorable, though mostly because of Kat Dennings) I didn't think it was the be all end all of books so I was never really interested in reading anything else by her (or Levithan, though I have read Boy Meets Boy which was cute as well). After this...I probably won't be reading anything by her again.
Honestly, this is probably one of those cases where there's nothing really WRONG with the book story-wise/writing wise. It gets the job done, and I suppose for the more willing-to-let-things-go reader, it could be entertaining. But this book just had all the things that tends to annoy me. For one, it's amazingly dull. Like there's literally nothing happening till maybe the middle and I'm not sure if I can even count her and her honey declaring true love as something happening. Then the world building just...makes no sense. I understand suspension of disbelief is a thing that is helpful and usually I can let it go. I mean I love Hunger Games but come on, that world will never happen. But Collins gives me enough info and does things logically enough that I'm able to believe it for the duration of reading it. This one just utterly failed to make me believe any of this. It just didn't make any sense. On top of THAT, Elysia was a dull heroine who was passive to the point of ridiculousness, rape was used as a plot point and later the result of the rape (a baby) turned into a anti-abortion message (yes, I'm Pro-Choice. I have no problem with people who are Pro-Life but I have a HUGE problem with forcing a woman who was raped to have her rapist's baby because "it's special"), there's insta-love, slut-shaming, and did I mention it was dull for the first half of the book?
Again, some readers may enjoy this more then I do. I'm sure it's been established that I can be picky with books and especially with Dystopians. But this was definitely not for me.
WHO SHOULD READ: Rachel Cohn fans, those not bothered by sloppy world building in dystopians
MY RATING: Two out of Five eye-twitching induced plots

Book Review: Dance of Shadows

TITLE: Dance of Shadows
Book 1 in the Dance of Shadows Trilogy
AUTHOR: Yelena Black
PUBLISHED: February 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Paranormal, Romance
PREMISE: Vanessa attends the New York City Ballet school to dance..and to find out what happened to her sister who mysteriously disappeared the year before.
MY REVIEW: From the premise of this and the tone of the book, I have a feeling the author was aiming for a combination of Twilight/Center Stage/Black Swan. Unfortunately the Twilight part kind of took over. For the record, I love Center Stage and Black Swan. They are ridiculous dance films (especially Center Stage which is so corny but so fun) and if you ever just want a movie with great dancing, I highly rec them. If Black had managed to do just a combination of those two...I probably would have dug this.
To be fair I never got the sense that the author was trying to write the most epic thing ever. She really was clearly just trying to entertain. In the minimalist sense...I suppose she succeeded. There is a rather interesting mystery with the sister going on that may (MAY) cause me to actually read the next one. But honestly, that's really the only interesting thing in this. The rest is all the usual YA tropes thrown in one. Flowery, trying too hard writing? Check. Love triangle with insta romance on both sides? Check. Stereotyped insta friends? Check. Plot holes galore? Check. Dull heroine? Check. Romance eclipsing all the actual interesting plot points? Check. There's even the stereotyped bitchy girl who of course is villainized even though the main character is not exactly a saint and basically stole said girl's boyfriend.
So really this was a business as usual sort of book. There's nothing really new here to set it apart from any other YA paranormal, aside from the fact that it's about ballet. I did like the description of the dance. But honestly there's not much here for me to say go read it now. Check it out of the library if you must, but don't bother otherwise.
WHO SHOULD READ: ballet fans, Twilight fans
MY RATING: Two out of Five this could have been better plots

Book Review: Defiance

TITLE: Defiance
Book 1 in the Defiance series
AUTHOR: C. J. Redwine
PUBLISHED: August 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dystopian/fantasy? I'm not sure. Romance
PREMISE: Despite limitations placed on her by her society's brutal leader, Rachel does her best to find her father, lost out in the wastelands.
MY REVIEW: So...Defiance. Um...it's not the worst book I've ever read. But...it's not very great either. To me, this is one of those books that if you turn your brain off while reading it, you'll probably enjoy it a lot more because then you can ignore the plot holes. And believe me, there are plotholes.
Also if you turn your brain off you can ignore the sexism in it. I know, I know, the summary makes it sound totally feminist, right? Yeah, no. Rachel very rarely actually uses these awesome sword capabilities we're told frequently that she has and much of her use is mostly love interest. Logan pretty much does everything in the book after she whines and prods him to do it for her. Oh and Logan is sexist himself. I seriously lost count how many times he moaned about this silly little twat who doesn't know her place. Yet, she still falls for him and they still have epic true love. Fabulous. Then there's sloppy world building galore. I still don't know if this is fantasy, dystopian, what. I'm leaning towards fantasy because I'm sorry there's no way in hell this could ever be a possible future. Please tell me how women would totally be okay with being required to have male escorts to go everywhere in the future.
There was some nice writing, a bit of a plot, and I got the feeling the sexism wasn't intentional on the authors part but that's no excuse. Honestly this book just felt unimaginative and it was definitely sloppy and could have used tons of editing. Library read only if you're really interested.
WHO SHOULD READ: Um...not sure. Twilight fans maybe?
MY RATING: Two out of Five pretend badass girls

Book Review: Finale

TITLE: Finale
Book 4 in the Hush Hush series
AUTHOR: Becca Fitzpatrick
PUBLISHED: October 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Angels, romance, urban fantasy
PREMISE: Nora leads the Nephilem in a war while hiding her relationship with Patch.
MY REVIEW: When I think of Hush Hush I don't think of it with anger like I know most readers do (with good reason, there's tons of problems with this series and all complaints are pretty legit), I think of it with sadness. This series had SO MUCH potential. I mean that second book made me so hopeful that I gave it a higher rating then I probably should have. Unfortunately Fitzpatrick doesn't really think outside the box and thus the series basically wound up being a HUGE let down. I mean, talk about a anti-climatic ending.
One would think a war between angels would be interesting, right? Well, apparently not. See, apparently angels really care about who their leader is dating instead of you know, winning the damn war. So we're treated to a utterly contrived scenario where Nora has to hide her relationship with Patch. Again. Because she's never done that before. And Marcie...oh how I weep for Marcie and all her wasted potential as a character. Marcie could have been the Cordelia of Hush Hush because she's just as awesome, but no...she gets slammed and judged and slut shamed instead. Complete. Utter. Waste. Don't get me started on the completely predictable ending. I'll give you a hint: the only one that dies is a character none of the main characters even care about.
So this series honestly just makes me sad. It could have been ten times better then it actually was. This is like Twilight where I wish the idea had been put into the hands of a better and more ambitious author who wasn't stuck in Epic True Love land.
WHO SHOULD READ: Twilight fans, fans of the first three books
MY RATING: Two and a half out of Five cliches
RATING FOR OVERALL SERIES: Two out of Five sad sighs for such wasted potential