Review of Night Owls by Jenn Bennett

Feeling alive is always worth the risk.

Meeting Jack on the Owl—San Francisco's night bus—turns Beatrix's world upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive...and possibly one of San Francisco's most notorious graffiti artists.

But Jack is hiding a piece of himself. On midnight rides and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who this enigmatic boy really is.

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(In the US Night Owls is called The Anatomical Shape of a Heart)

I really liked the concept of Night Owls, enough for it to remain quite high on my wishlist or quite some time. However the execution was pretty poor. The blurb gives the impression of two people that meet on a midnight ride and perhaps fall in love over time, I had an idea in my head that most of the book would be on a bus, or they would meet night after night. However, Beatrix meets Jack on a five minute bus journey and they become pretty infatuated with each other very quickly, to the point where it almost felt like insta-love, a trope more often seen in fantasy YA.

The good parts about this was ALL THE ART. While Jack spends his time graffiti-ing Big Gold Words (view spoiler) on public property, Beatrix is an art prodigy with a focus on anatomy. She's going through her dark phase and has ditched all her coloured pencils in favour of structured, anatomical drawings with a goal of getting into a good medical school and making books or something.

However, I never understood Jack. He basically ditched her fairly early on without even a text, leaving her to then track him down and no matter what he says Bea just... simpers. When he straight up lied about a major event she practically shrugged and I still don't understand why he lied. Also they both have spectacularly shit parents and I couldn't understand why Bea's mother treated her 18 year old daughter, who had a job and her own bills, like she was a bratty 13 year old.

What killed this book for me was the gushing, cringing, crawling, in your face, up your arse, in your closet, romance. She thought about him constantly. She wanted to fuck him constantly, she thought about his stupid unwashed belt far too much and the whole thing made me want to vomit violently and excessively. I nearly DNFd the book with 50 pages to go.

Review of Crown Of Oblivion by Julie Eshbaugh

Astrid is the surrogate for Princess Renya, which means she bears the physical punishment if Renya steps out of line. Astrid has no choice—she and her family are Outsiders, the lower class of people without magic and without citizenship.

But there is a way out of this life—competing in the deadly Race of Oblivion. To enter the race, an Outsider is administered the drug Oblivion, which wipes their memory clear of their past as they enter a new world with nothing to help them but a slip of paper bearing their name and the first clue. It’s not as simple as solving a puzzle, however—for a majority of the contestants, the race ends in death. But winning would mean not only freedom for Astrid, but citizenship and health care for her entire family. With a dying father to think of, Astrid is desperate to prevail.

From the beginning, the race is filled with twists and turns. One of them is Darius, a fellow racer Astrid meets but isn’t sure she can trust. Though they team up in the race, as Astrid’s memories begin to resurface, she remembers just who he was to her—a scorned foe who may want revenge. Astrid also starts to notice she has powers no Outsider should—which could help her win the race, but also make her a target if anyone finds out. With stakes that couldn’t be higher, Astrid must decide what is more important: risking her life to remember the mysteries of the past, or playing a cutthroat game in order to win her—and her family’s—freedom.

There's so many great reviews of this book but quite frankly what I read was a whole mess. This would be great as a first draft but there was so much thrown in that it just didn't work and ended up almost feeling middle grade in places. Characters were basically just Speshul Proganist, Rebel, Bad Prince, Good Princess, Love Interest That Does Dark Things But It's Okay Because He Has Reasons.

I know this book really wanted to be the next Hunger Games, literally lifting some of it to use in this book but the great things about The Hunger Games this book didn't have. The extra contestants, apart from Darius, all faded into one and had very little personality besides stabby. They also disappeared very quickly. One particular contestant that did stand out at the beginning completely disappeared for the rest of the book and I only just remembered her now.

Right so what do we have? *Deep breath* Fantasy land, royal kingdom, indentured servants, people with magic, people without magic, three different types of magic that is not fullt explained, drugs, a race which makes little sense, the IRA... no... OLA, the Third Reich... whoops, Third Way, journalists, one scene which legit felt like Wacky Races, weird family secrets, weird love interest secrets, weird Princess secrets, stabby people, clues you'll never solve because they didn't think to provide us with a map, memories that make your brain hurty, wild boars, boxing matches, underground communities (thanks scorch trials and hunger games).

One thing that was never really explained is how much help Astrid got for no apparent reason. Everyone she seemed to meet was more than willing to help her Because Reasons. Despite living with the Princess for most of her life, Astrid also seemed to be completely unaware of the race or how it worked until the moment she decided to sign up on a whim.

What really killed the story for me was the constant use of "And Then This Happens", throwing in another completely bizarre, random plot device or plot twist to move the story along. It ended up just being a contest to see what shit would stick. The story didn't break new ground, nothing felt new or interesting but it was readable.

Review of Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw

Be careful of the dark, dark wood…

Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even.

Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it’s this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman—the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago—and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no memory of the time he’d been missing.

But Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver’s presence. And it’s not too long after that Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind how the boy she has come to care so deeply about survived his time in the forest, and what led him there in the first place. What Nora doesn’t know, though, is that Oliver has secrets of his own—secrets he’ll do anything to keep buried, because as it turns out, he wasn’t the only one to have gone missing on that fateful night all those weeks ago.

Winterwood really captures the feeling of late 2000s YA, where insta-love was everywhere and every protagonist seemed to spend a whole book whining about how hard their life was. Thw Walker women are incredible witches, gothic and mysterious with unusual abilities, able to charm bees, cry lakes and whisper to spiders. Unfortunately we get saddled with Nora, who is bloody annoying.

The story is vaguely (very vaguely) similar to Beware The Wild, a 5 star read where people go missing in a small town with a creepy swamp, it has the same gothic vibes and mystery but this book didn't really seem to go anyway. I guessed the big reveal a hundred pages in so had to sit around waiting to confirmed right for another 200 pages.

Nora and Oliver are... well I can't call them a good couple when they fall into the insta-love category. Again with the late 2000s tropes it very much feels like Nora Might Just Die Of A Broken Heart if she loses the boy she found having a nap in the woods a couple of hours ago. Get your shit together girl.

What was going on with Nora's mother during this book? She never made an appearance. Nora talked about her constantly and yeah she was on holiday or something but it was so weird that a character that was spoken about throughout the whole book never once made an appearance in the final chapters.

The ending was a complete cop out, come on. It was like the author had written it a different way, told that was too depressing and had to scramble to edit a nicer ending in later. I didn't like the ending at all, it was far too neatly packaged.

Review of The Death Cure by James Dashner

It’s the end of the line.

WICKED has taken everything from Thomas: his life, his memories, and now his only friends—the Gladers. But it’s finally over. The trials are complete, after one final test.

Will anyone survive?

What WICKED doesn’t know is that Thomas remembers far more than they think. And it’s enough to prove that he can’t believe a word of what they say.

The truth will be terrifying.

Thomas beat the Maze. He survived the Scorch. He’ll risk anything to save his friends. But the truth might be what ends it all.

The time for lies is over.

Let's have a ranty spoilery angry collection of text about this stupid book and I'll throw it under a spoiler warning so no-one has a temper tantrum. Also if you're of a sensitive disposition and don't like people dissing authors or swearing, not scrolling is self care.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS

This series is so shit it makes Wither (aka The Chemical Garden) series look like high quality writing. What a load of crap that was - by the way if you've ever seen Lauren Destefano go OFF about someone who called one of her book covers "that green thing", that was me. I don't care. It looked crap. I only asked because I was trying to work out if the green was a green screen and they were adding the real background later. I need to make a shelf of authors that should be banned from writing equipment.

I have PMS and a fever and I am in a mood. This series was supposed to be my escape from the swollen throat, bloody mucus and constant nose blowing I'm experiencing. Much like Wither, the first book held Huge Promise for the rest of the series and then after that the author was like, oh wait I have to write sequels after the first book? Whoops I forgot how to write.

My biggest issue with The Scorch Trials was that it suffered heavily from Second Book Syndrome but had Very Easily Fixable problems. For example, Dashner decided to just basically wipe out pretty much all of the Gladers save like... idk 5 with names and a good 6 others. So it would be obvious to basically everyone to bring these characters, and the characters from Group B, to the forefront and flesh them out to increase tension in the story? But nah. They were literally only mentioned as "other Gladers" and didn't even had cardboard substance they were just... there. In comparison Hunger Games did this very well, introducing new characters each book that were well fleshed out and memorable.

Group B in this book don't really exist. While a few of them got names and no personality in the last book, this book they disappear fairly quickly with Teresa, again, mimicking the plot of the second book because Dasher wants his characters to run away from having personalities. But honestly I find Teresa Annoying As Hell so I can't complain too much.

The biggest issue I had was a huge moment at the beginning where the Gladers were told they would get their memories back. Thomas and I presume Minho get theirs later but this is never mentioned. They got the chip out and nothing. I wanted that moment of them sharing stories of their childhood and we never got that. We didn't even get to find out their real names, even though it was mentioned earlier on that they're all named after important historical figures by WICKED. Hopefully that's fixed later but fixing it in a prequel is a "whoops I forgot" moment for sure.

I felt absolutely nothing when major characters died that I originally cared about in TMR. Literally, nothing. It was more of a "there goes another one" and move on. The story lacked all compassion or great moment for them, unlike Chuck. Again, the first book.

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW WOAH

Also that ending? Well humanity is fucked lol but we put all these immune people on a nice field - which is never really explained because isn't the world supposed to be suffering from extreme weather patterns? But WICKED just saved this nice patch of grass with a river just in case? Lol wut? Also we never really saw any real reaction from Thomas when Teresa died Cersei style cos he'd already replaced her with Brenda...?, because for some reason Thomas needed a woman to stroke his ego for three books. Honestly that whole scene was saccharine.

It gets 2 stars because going back to the Maze was actually A Good Idea.

Review of The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

TODD HEWITT IS THE LAST BOY IN PRENTISSTOWN.

But Pretisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in a contant, overwhelming, never-ending Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets.

Or are there?

Just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd unexpectedly stumbles upon a spot of complete silence.

Which is impossible.

Prentisstown has been lying to him.

And now he's going to have to run...

This book has been on my TBR probably as long as I have been a book blogger, which is a seriously long time (a good 8 years is my guess). I love Patrick Ness, I loved the concept but at 479 pages I was seriously daunted. I'm choosing a few books randomly now, to cut down my TBR and this came up, so I finally cracked it open.

The story is your standard dystopia/mystery - Todd lives in Prentisstown where everyone has Big Secrets that they all know except for him. You really have to suspend your belief here because apparently everyone has these Big Secrets while being able to hear everyone's thoughts, and somehow Todd is so stupid that he has never once heard even a snippet of something that sounds wrong about Prentisstown in nearly 13 years, not even from the men that raised him.

The whole book is Todd, his dog Manchee and new found female Viola walking a lot and getting beaten up beyond recognition by an absolute nutter. Along the way they slowly discover the Big Secrets, all of which was completely and utterly unsurprising to the point where I'm pretty sure I rolled my eyes at one point. One scene completely broke my heart and left me a sobbing mess and if you've read it you already know which one.

What an utter slog this book was. It's worth noting that I have read three other books by Patrick Ness, two of which I rated 5 stars and the other got 4 stars. So to not enjoy this story was a surprise to me. The pacing, the story, the characters, none of it redeemed the sheer trek through all 479 pages and I felt absolutely nothing when I closed the final page.

Sorry, CW fans.

The List - Siobhan Vivian

Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 336
Publisher: Push
Release Date: 01/04/2012 
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An intense look at the rules of high school attraction - and the price that's paid for them.

It happens every year. A list is posted, and one girl from each grade is chosen as the prettiest, and another is chosen as the ugliest. Nobody knows who makes the list. It almost doesn't matter. The damage is done the minute it goes up.

This is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, "pretty" and "ugly." And it's also the story of how we see ourselves, and how other people see us, and the tangled connection of the two.

At some point in her life Siobhan Vivian decided that having a 350 page book with eight different points of view was a fine idea, and no-one sat her down and suggested that maybe, no.

Quite frankly that could really sum up the whole book without a full review. However I do feel I should cover the Whole Thing, including the underused characters, the stories that never were and the complete lack of ending. The majority of characters get no closure whatsoever. It just stops. A couple of characters get a decent ending but not a single character comes away from the story without leaving unanswered questions. Potentially some spoilers as I'm discussing who got a decent ending. 

Freshmen: Ugliest - Danielle. Prettiest - Abby. I think most readers can agree that Danielle could easily hold up an entire novel by herself, she's a great character that struggles with being viewed as masculine, while loving to swim competitively. She has a boyfriend she met at camp that's acting weird around her and a great backstory about how they met. Easily a standalone. On the other hand, Abby is not really memorable or interesting and she may have the least amount of chapters. Abby's sister was easily more intriguing, she's a geek that struggles with not being as pretty as her younger sister and later on (view spoiler).

Sophomores: Ugliest - Candace. Prettiest - Lauren. Candace is labelled as ugly due to her personality, which you basically never see. Lauren has just moved to town after previously being homeschooled and is almost a Carrie character, if Carrie was attractive and accepted by girls. Candace seems hurt by her friends but you never see the ugly personality mentioned. If anything, Candace and Lauren end up with an interesting almost-friendship that could also have been explored in it's own book. The ending for Lauren ends with a lot of questions as to what will happen in her future.

Juniors: Ugliest - Sarah. Prettiest - Bridget. Sarah gets called Ugly so naturally, she decides to wear the same clothes and not bathe for a week. She somehow gets so disgusting that no-one wants to stand near her. Anyone who's been stuck in a depression spiral knows that this is greatly exaggerated and unless you're running track every single day you're not going to be as greasy and smelly as Sarah is on Day 3. I found her obsession with Milo's ex pretty annoying but she did have an okay ending. Bridget has an eating disorder, which the List just makes a hundred times worse. She gets no ending really, no closure, not even a clue as to if her disorder will be dealt with before it's too late. It was a very strange ending, almost flippant which you never want to be about a subject as serious as this. 

Seniors: Ugliest - Jennifer. Prettiest - Margo. Jennifer and Margo have a history and they're yet another pair that could fill a whole book. Margo was a good point of view to have, as she showed the hard decisions people have to make to fit in, and the way friendships change as you grow up. I found the reasons Margo had for disliking Jennifer to be pretty understandable in the end at least.

Wilder Girls - Rory Power

Genres: Mystery, Horror
Pages: 353
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: 09/07/2019
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It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.

It may be September but look at me, I finished a book this year! I picked Wilder Girls as my way back in because it has a drop dead gorgeous cover and all the tropes I love. Mysterious island? Check. Weird virus? Check. Boarding school drama? Check check check.

Wilder Girls is one of the books that feels absolutely amazing. Until you actually sit down and start thinking about the overall plot. To be honest, this is full of plot holes, things are not explained much or explained in a rush (which often just feels like lazy writing) and there's very little characterisation outside of Hetty and her friends.

The story is good and I did love Hetty, Byatt and Reese, however the story from Reese's perspective would have been more interesting, as it was pretty clear that Reese had a better back story. Actually I can't really say much about Hetty before Raxter because it's barely mentioned and all I know about Byatt is that she's Byatt. It might have been mentioned and I forgot. There's definitely an overall feeling like they have lived at Raxter their whole lives.

The ending was a straight up cliffhanger so I presume there will either be a sequel or the author just didn't have the ability to finish the story properly. I hate to be harsh but the overall vibe I got was that the author had a small stomach and very large plate, they had a concept and no ability to fully flesh out and execute it into something beautiful.

Review of The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson

Series: Shades Of London #2
Genres: Paranormal, Mystery
Pages: 290
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: 26/02/2018
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After her near-fatal run-in with the Jack the Ripper copycat, Rory Deveaux has been living in Bristol under the close watch of her parents. So when her therapist suddenly suggests she return to Wexford, Rory jumps at the chance to get back to her friends.

But Rory’s brush with the Ripper touched her more than she thought possible: she’s become a human terminus, with the power to eliminate ghosts on contact. She soon finds out that the Shades - the city’s secret ghost-fighting police - are responsible for her return. The Ripper may be gone, but now there is a string of new inexplicable deaths threatening London. Rory has evidence that the deaths are no coincidence. Something much more sinister is going on, and now she must convince the squad to listen to her before it’s too late.

I'm sick and tired of being disappointed by sequels. I'm a little but angry too. Why is it that nearly every Young Adult author can write an amazing first book and then the second just goes to shit? This wasn't that terrible and at very least the writing style stayed consistent (looking at you DeStefano) but just like... basically nothing happened.

We started off with a pretty fantastic set up - a basement with a mysterious chalk cross and a man beaten to death with a hammer held by an invisible hand and his employee blamed for it. So here I was, thinking great, now more mysterious stuff is going to happen, I couldn't wait to find out what the cross would signify. Yeah that was all over and done with within a chapter - when we finally got the the chapter 50% into the book.

“Life is always going to be a series of ouch-making moments, and the question was, was I going to go all fetal position, or was I going to woman up? I went into fetal position on the bed to think about this. Fetal position turned out to be very comfortable.”

 Nearly every plot point in this book (all three of them, the rest is just Rory worried about failing her exams) goes nowhere, or is over within a short space of time. I was expecting that Rory would be joining the team and we'd all go ghost hunting and we just got... nothing. She finally went to go find the team a good half way into the book and the rest was umming and ahhing about if the only available terminus (Rory) should be used or not.

The ending was enough of a cliff hanger to make me read the next book but I'm certain that it will have pissed a lot of other readers off. I'm mostly angry because I'm surprised that with a concept as cool as this and with so much that you can do with it, I was stuck reading about Rory taking hot showers and not connecting with her boyfriend.

“But here I was, quasi-boyfriend saying he wanted to take me on an actual date, and I was just staring at him impassively, like a horse watching a mime pretending to walk against the wind.”

 It was kind of sad to see that Jerome, Jazza and Alistair all became background characters in this book, particularly Alistair. He got a grand total one of scene. When Rory screams at Alistair (ghost) to back off, Jerome obviously assumes it's him and his first reaction is "what is wrong with you?". Erm she was literally stabbed a couple of weeks ago.

Charlotte gets all the fun of being a major character in this book... while still feeling completely like a background character. I actually really felt sorry for her, she's just been beaten over the head and nearly killed by someone she didn't see and Rory/Jazza's reaction is to scoff at her wanting a psychiatrist and literally saying that Rory's injury was worse, acting like Charlotte had no right to be anything but completely fine with what happened to her. Pro tip: just because someone might be worse than you, that doesn't make your pain any less valid.

Review of Quicksilver by R. J. Anderson

Genres: Sci-Fi, Mystery

Pages: 375

Publisher: Orchard Books

Release Date: 02/05/2013

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Back in her hometown, Tori Beaugrand had everything a teenaged girl could want—popularity, money, beauty. But she also had a secret. A secret that could change her life in an instant, or destroy it.

Now she’s left everything from her old life behind, including her real name and Alison, the one friend who truly understood her. She can’t escape who and what she is. But if she wants to have anything like a normal life, she has to blend in and hide her unusual... talents.

Plans change when the enigmatic Sebastian Faraday reappears and gives Tori some bad news: she hasn’t escaped her past. In fact, she’s attracted new interest in the form of an obsessed ex-cop turned investigator for a genetics lab.

She has one last shot at getting her enemies off her trail and winning the security and independence she’s always longed for. But saving herself will take every ounce of Tori’s incredible electronics and engineering skills—and even then, she may need to sacrifice more than she could possibly imagine if she wants to be free.

I was a bit surprised when I started this and discovered that the point of view had switched from Alison to Tori, or Niki she calls herself in this book - after Nikola Tesla of course. Niki proved to be an engaging, interesting character and asexual too - I was happy to get some representation in YA. However there wasn't something of a spark that Alison had that was lacking with this character.

I experienced a similar disappointment with this book as I did when I read the Chemical Garden series - the first book was easily a 5 star read, extremely well written and a plot that that I'd happily read over and over. The second was cliched, poorly written and I was left with a feeling of disappointment rather than satisfaction.  

‘That’s not what I mean,’ I said, fighting to keep the anger out of my voice. Because it wasn’t Milo I was angry at, it was the whole stupid world. A world where relationships like the one I’d had with Brendan were normal, and the one I had with Milo was not. ‘There’s no such thing as just a friend, Milo. Friendship is one of the most important things there is.’ 

Switching the point of view to Tori/Niki did work as it gave us the opportunity to introduce new characters, like Milo. I really liked his friendship with Niki, plus he added a Korean background and grandparents which I enjoyed reading about. On the other hand, I ended up hating Sebastian (who was on the #2 spot for favourite book boyfriends last book) and Niki's constant hatred of his and Alison's relationship just got tedious after a while.

Engineering plays a huge part in this, as Niki is a talented engineer, something her parents allow, but disapprove of her doing anything bigger for some reason. They're also racist bigots so there's that. Unfortunately it's all about the engineering and not so much about the spaceship we seemed to have landed on in the last book, if you're reading this for that world to be expanded upon you'll be disappointed.

Review of Nothing But Sky by Amy Trueblood

Genres: Historical, Romance

Pages: 284

Publisher: Flux Books

Release Date: 27/03/2018

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 (Received free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

Grace Lafferty only feels alive when she's dangling 500 feet above ground. As a post-World War I wing walker, Grace is determined to get to the World Aviation Expo, proving her team’s worth against flashier competitors and earning a coveted Hollywood contract. 

No one’s ever questioned Grace’s ambition until Henry Patton, a mechanic with plenty of scars from the battlefield, joins her barnstorming team. With each new death-defying trick, Henry pushes Grace to consider her reasons for being a daredevil. Annoyed with Henry’s constant interference, and her growing attraction to him, Grace continues to test the powers of the sky. 

After one of her risky maneuvers saves a pilot’s life, a Hollywood studio offers Grace a chance to perform at the Expo. She jumps at the opportunity to secure her future. But when a stunt goes wrong, Grace must decide whether Henry, and her life, are worth risking for one final trick.

The one thing I really, really hated about this book was that I really want to love it instead. It's a story about an 18 year old stunt performer in the 1920's who walks on planes for a living, this should be one of my favourites of 2018. Unfortunately it was bogged down by bad writing and a subpar romance plot that I just didn't care about.

I feel like romance in YA has changed and readers want the romance to be less forced and obvious. I also hate overflowery words and crap like "his lips drew me in with the force of a thousand suns" (it didn't actually say those exact words but you get the gist). It was obvious the moment that Henry stepped in that Grace would fall in love with him and I was pretty bored by the whole fake angst thing going on.

The relationships between Grace and her makeshift family really worked though. We learn that she was sent to her Uncle at 13 after her own parents died and now at 18, she has her Uncle and war veterans Daniel and Nathan as her family. They make a great team and I wish we could have had a little more of that relationship.

The story does suffer from bad writing unfortunately, sentences seem to be repeated within the same chapter and Grace often thinks the same things over and over, making the story feel repetative. It felt like each chapter played out like an episode of a soap opera to be honest. I also did not like the portrayal of PTSD and I think readers would be insulted to find that Henry basically overcame his PTSD episode at one point because he wanted to protect Grace or some rubbish.

The historical side is clearly intensely researched and I really appreciated that. You get plenty of 1920's slang and terms I've never heard of which really did make me feel like I was in that time period. The descriptions of Grace's stunts were vivid too and easily the best parts of the whole book, and often gut wrenching at times.

Review of Lost Boy, Found Boy by Jenn Polish

Genres: Retelling, Sci-Fi

Pages: 80

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 19/03/2018

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(Received free from NetGalley for review)

In a futuristic world, Neverland is a holomatrix, Hook is a cyborg, and Tinker Bell is an automated computer interface.

 Peter is desperate to save his lover from a military draft that, unbeknownst to him, Mir volunteered for because they are desperate to be able to fly. So, naturally, Peter programs an entire island—Neverland—as a refuge where Mir can fly without having to fight in a war.

 But he doesn’t locate Mir right away; instead, he fights for control of the island with automated interface Tinker Bell, and in his attempts to find Mir, others arrive on the island. But Peter’s single-minded focus on Mir generates repercussions for everyone.

Lost Boy Found Boy is a sci-fi retelling of Peter Pan, where Neverland is nothing but a computer program designed by Tink, a computer interface. When Peter discovers that their friend has signed up for (war? I think?), they'll do anything to get them to stay.

This was a really short book. Too short for the huge concepts that Jenn introduced. There was no introduction to the idea that Peter was transgender and I only kinda guessed it, as descriptions were lacking. Mir is non-binary like myself and that was the only obvious one (although Peter called them he later on which was confusing?). I had no clue that Tink was supposed to be an asexual lesbian or that Hook was bisexual.

 I did feel that these preferences and genders were just thrown in willy nilly and I really hate that. I'm asexual and non-binary and I want a story that represents me well. A lot of readers will read that Tink is asexual and have absolutely no idea what that means. I guess that Jenn was trying to help the community in some way but they really failed on that front.

 I won't deny that this was a really good concept though. It just needed more writing and a better editing team. It was a bit like watching a pilot episode, it was great, introduced characters I was interested in and showed us a world I really wanted to explore. The world building was the biggest loss, it was barely mentioned.

Review of Sam & Ilsa's Last Hurrah by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Genres: Contemporary, LGBT

Publisher: Electric Monkey

Release Date: 05/04/2018

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(Received free from NetGalley for review)

Sam and Ilsa Kehlmann have spent most of their high school years throwing dinner parties, and now they’ve prepared their final blowout, just before graduation. The rules for the twins are simple: they each get to invite three guests, and the other twin doesn’t know who’s coming until the guests show up at the door. With Sam and Ilsa, the sibling revelry is always tempered with a large dose of sibling rivalry, and tonight is no exception. 

 One night. One apartment. Eight people. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, we all know the answer is plenty. But plenty also goes right – in rather surprising ways.

If you look up pretentious in the dictionary, there's a handy little picture of this book next to it. Honestly when I read the description I got that it was a party and there was eight random guests with two twin protagonists and that sounded awesome, I generally love contemporary with a dash of romance so what could possibly go wrong?

Basically, everything went wrong. What this book actually is, is a story about a bunch of rich mostly white folk whining for literally the whole book and then for some reason we jump to Ten Years Later for the final chapter, as if I would actually care enough about these people to want to check up on them as adults.

"So we're not just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?" Parker asks. "Wrong question." Li replies. "My point isn't about deck chairs. Nobody cares about deck chairs. What I'm saying is - there comes a time, long before the accident, when you decide how many lifeboats the Titanic should have."

The main two characters are Ilsa and Sam. Sam I like, he's quite similar to me in that he has severe anxiety but different too because he has actual friends that he has house parties with. I've literally never been to anything like this and nor would I want to. Ilsa is a brat. Literally just an annoying brat who's jealous that Sam is their Grandmother's favourite and really likes to stick her nose in everyone's business.

The whole concept of the story is the house party, because Sam and Ilsa's Grandmother Czarina is moving out of her posh flat and going to Paris. The plan was a last goodbye before all her stuff is packed and the neighbours extend their own apartment into hers. Sam invites three guests and Ilsa invites three too. However I forgot who invited who.

"Because I'm so tired of worshipping breakable things. Because I wanted to see the impulse through. Because I wanted to see the look on their faces. Because I wanted to do something that I've kept inside of me so they could see what's been inside me all this time."

 I think a big problem with the book was that none of the characters were that interesting, as well as choosing a single environment and one night for pretty much the entire book with nothing major happening like an apocalypse or a flood, meant that the story never went anywhere. One character KK was supposed to be really annoying but I just felt nothing towards her. She said what she thought and likes sushi. That's all I know.

Johan... Jason(?) and Caspian/Frederyk all blurred into one for me, to the point where I can't remember if the sock puppet is Caspian or Frederyk. I think it's Caspian. I literally had to deal with a guy spending an entire night talking through a sock puppet and by the end I was ready to flush the thing down the toilet myself. It was just really weird and really creepy.

Review of Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Series: The Chemical Garden #2

Genres: Dystopia, Romance 

Pages: 341

Publisher: Simon Schuster

Release Date: 21/02/2012

Find The Author: Website / Twitter

Find The Book: Book Depository / Amazon UK/US

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Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ring mistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary.

Warning: there will be spoilers for Wither, the previous book in this series.

Over-hype is a truly terrible thing, we see it all the time, there's always the most popular book out and everyone is raving and you pick it up expecting Great Things, only to be bitterly disappointed. I think I had an idea in my head when I started reading Fever, of where I wanted it to go and I was definitely disappointed when I didn't get the story that I was hoping for.

We left Wither on a true high note, Rhine and Gabriel had escaped the shackles of her husband's mansion and she planned to find her brother. What I was expecting was for the story to turn post-apocalyptic, with the whole walking from destroyed town to destroyed town thing. What we got was... I'm not really sure. Compared the gorgeous writing and pacing of the first book this was undeniably a mess.

We start of where Rhine and Gabriel are captured by a Carnival which is actually a brothel featuring some sort of French woman who's batsh-... completely batty and Rhine keeps her virginity very much in tact due to a combination of voodoo magic and sheer bloody determination from the author I guess. The rest of the story is trippy mess as Rhine slowly descends into a Fever that doesn't break.

Speaking of the carnival scenes, I really felt that this was added at different point than the rest of the book, possibly later. The whole thing is written quite rushed and choppy, completely different to writing style in the rest of the book which made the whole thing more confusing.

Old characters are reintroduced but don't have quite the same impact as Wither. Gabriel becomes somewhat cardboard unfortunately, as I loved him in the first book. Rhine can't seem to make up her mind what she wants and the discovery of what happened to one of Rhine's friends was a bit too much even for me.

Review of Of Scars And Stardust by Andrea Hannah

Format: eBook
Genres: contemporary, mystery, romance,
Pages: 336
Publisher: Flux
Release Date: 08/10/2014
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter
Abe Books ¦ Book Depository ¦ Goodreads

After her little sister mysteriously vanishes, seventeen-year-old Claire Graham has a choice to make: stay snug in her little corner of Manhattan with her dropout boyfriend, or go back to Ohio to face the hometown tragedy she's been dying to leave behind.

But the memories of that night still haunt her in the city, and as hard as she tries to forget what her psychiatrist calls her "delusions," Claire can't seem to escape the wolf's eyes or the blood-speckled snow. Delusion or reality, Claire knows she has to hold true to the most important promise she's ever made: to keep Ella safe. She must return to her sleepy hometown in order to find Ella and keep her hallucinations at bay before they strike again. But time is quickly running out, and as Ella's trail grows fainter, the wolves are becoming startlingly real.

Now Claire must deal with her attraction to Grant, the soft-spoken boy from her past that may hold the secret to solving her sister's disappearance, while following the clues that Ella left for only her to find. Through a series of cryptic diary entries, Claire must unlock the keys to Ella's past—and her own—in order to stop another tragedy in the making, while realizing that not all things that are lost are meant to be found.

If you're after a great mystery, the opening chapters of Of Stars And Stardust will completely suck you in - Claire goes to a party that's supposed to be a birthday party organised by her friend, and she's only interested in going to see Grant, a guy she has a crush on. But Grant doesn't arrive and Ella does, Claire's younger sister. Drunk, she tells Ella to go home and it's not until morning that Claire realises her sister never came home.

This is a brutal, bloody story that packs a punch, but left me wanting - a decent story. There's only so much blood and violence you can add to a book without seeming to have any idea where you're going with it and I really felt like the author didn't have a clue. After we find Ella, the book switches to a few years later and slowly goes downhill from there.

Claire has to come back home, for reasons unknown (to me), to help find her sister. Ella's disappeared and no-one seems to have a clue where to even start and I don't actually remember anyone looking for her either, other than Claire. Claire's a hard character to love, mainly because she's constantly rambling on about how these wolves must have her sister and she mustn't have anything cherry scented because they like that.

The middle was slow, but the ending was just abysmal. There were far too many ideas just thrown at the wall and nothing stuck. The last few lines were so bizarre I was just left dumbstruck that this was even published. I have no idea what was going on for the most part and on top of that, a lot of the ending had that 'so this happened' mentality of shoving everything into one chapter to tie loose ends up.

This could have been a great book and it's certainly very unique. However, I'm not a fan of throwing stars at something just because it's a unique concept. It would have received just one star, however I loved Ella and the opening chapters were really amazing (I even cried a little), so it gets upgraded to two.